


Consequences

by Ultra



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Conversations, Character Development, Complicated Relationships, Consequences, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feelings, Feels, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Living Together, Love Confessions, Moving In Together, Parker Being Parker (Leverage), Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Protective Eliot Spencer, Team as Family, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 85,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: For every action there are consequences and Parker is about to find that out in a big way! What impact will it have on the team when she reveals the truth about what she and Eliot did, and her resulting 'condition?





	1. Chapter 1

“Hey, Sophie,” said Parker as she wandered into the kitchen area of Nate’s apartment where the grifter was fluttering about. "Can I ask you something?”

“If it’s how the men in this team seem to survive on coffee, orange soda, and assorted junk, I honestly have no idea,” she complained, as she hunted high and low for something to eat.

“Actually, it’s about sex,” Parker told her, startling Sophie into pulling her head out of the cupboard fast and staring at the thief positively agog.

It wasn’t really a topic the girls had ever discussed before, it just hadn’t come up. Honestly, Sophie wasn’t sure how to broach such a subject, since Parker was so very different to ‘normal’ young women. There was no telling how much or how little she had in the way of experience, or exactly how she felt about not just the physicalities of relationships, but any part of them.

“Um, okay,” she said carefully, closing the cupboard door and moving to take a seat on a stool by the counter. "What exactly did you want to ask?” she said carefully, forcing a smile as she felt distinctly uncomfortable right now.

Parker wandered over with her hands in the pockets on her jacket, only taking them out to help her hop up onto the counter with her legs folded beneath her.

“Well, it’s weird,” she explained, not that Sophie was surprised to hear that since as much as she loved Parker like a sister after several years of working together, she wasn’t blind to the oddness about her. "I mean, condoms are pretty simple things and you kinda just expect them to work but... do they just kinda not sometimes?” she checked.

Sophie frowned at the blonde’s words and the fact she didn’t seem awfully willing to meet her eyes. If protection failed to work during sex, there was the potential for one or both of two things happening - pregnancy or disease. She almost feared asking which was bothering Parker right now.

“Well, nothing is a hundred percent guaranteed, sweetie,” she told her, putting a hand to her knee and getting her attention. "Are you worried that you might...?” she hoped if she left the question hanging that Parker might fill in the blank to save her having to pick an option from her short list of two possibilities.

“Be pregnant? Yeah,” said the blonde with a sigh, apparently not quite as overwhelmed by the prospect as Sophie herself. "I mean, who woulda thought, after just one night? And with a condom?” she shrugged her shoulders, kicking out one leg and inspecting something invisible on the toe of her shoe. "I guess it makes sense that his ‘little guys’ are as tough as he is.” She giggled at the odd prospect then. "Y’know, with little fists to punch through the protection,” she said, miming the action.

Sophie wasn’t finding any of this funny, not least because she was now completely lost by whatever Parker was rambling on about. It took a few moments before the light dawned in her head and she audibly gasped.

“Parker,” she said, making the blonde meet her eyes. "Who did you sleep with that you think might have got you pregnant?” she asked outright.

“Eliot,” she answered easily, like it was no big deal at all. "Didn’t I say that?” she checked back over her words and realised maybe she actually hadn’t, even though she’d meant too. "Kinda crazy, huh?”

“Yuh-huh!” said Sophie over-dramatically as she hopped down from the stool and started to pace the kitchen some.

It wasn’t just the shock of finding out Parker and Eliot had slept together, not even that they might have accidentally made a child. What really had Sophie reeling was that the thief seemed almost entirely unabashed by the entire situation! Sure, these two weren’t an obvious pairing, but who was these days? They did get along well, no matter how many times they bickered like kids, they always had each others backs. He would be the one to check Parker’s harness twice. She was the first to fetch ice when Eliot came home battered and bruised.

“Parker, could you just...” began Sophie, trying to sort through the myriad of questions in her brain and come up with the most important one first. "Um, how did this happen? I mean, I know how it happens,” she corrected herself, waving a hand in some random gesture. "But, when did you and Eliot...?”

“Er, like a month ago? Maybe a little longer.” Parker shrugged, still sat on the edge of the counter with her legs swinging back and forth. "I mean, we were just hanging out, I was helping patch him up after a job and he had his shirt off...”

“And one thing led to another,” said Sophie with a knowing look. "Oh yeah, I’ve been there,” she admitted quite calmly before suddenly exploding, "but I never got pregnant!”

“Geez, Soph, breathe!” Parker advised her, leaning away from her friend as she somewhat yelled in her face. "Its not like you’re having this kid.”

“No, but you are,” the brunette replied. "Parker, sweetheart, you do realise what this means?”

The thief looked thoughtful a moment, kicking the counter one more time before swinging down and landing deftly on her feet.

“I’m gonna have to have the awkward after-sex conversation with Eliot, aren’t I?” she sighed, not even noticing that Sophie’s eyes were getting wider by the second. "I mean, I hoped we could avoid that. That night, he fell asleep, I left out the window, and after... it was kinda like it never happened, 'til now,” she said, putting a cautious hand to her stomach that as yet showed no signs of growth. "It was just supposed to be sex. Really, really great sex,” she said, grinning perhaps too much, "but just sex.” She shrugged.

“Parker, please,” Sophie snapped, her hands to her temples like she felt the mother of all headaches coming on. "For the love of all that’s holy, please stop saying sex.”

The grifter’s brain was running at a mile a minute. There were so many things to think about! On the surface, she kind of loved the idea of being Auntie Sophie to a baby, and though she could be beyond odd and quirky, becoming a mother might even be the making of Parker... or the breaking of her. For every up there was at least six downs that Sophie could come up with right now. There was no way Parker could carry on working for the team - no rappelling, no crawling through air ducts, nothing she loved, not whilst she was carrying a child. Then when the baby came, somebody was going to have to look after it all the time, and keep he or she out of danger, not an easy task when their little family of five was pretty much constantly in the firing line of someone or something.

Of course, right now would not be a good time for Sophie to talk about these things with Parker. The poor girl needed reassurance and help with the situation she had landed herself in. There was one other with some responsibility to take on in this though, and given half the chance Sophie would like to tear him a new one for what he’d done, even though it wasn’t entirely his fault either.

“So Eliot doesn’t know?” she asked then. "About the baby, Parker? You haven’t told Eliot that you might be pregnant?” she prompted when the blonde looked at her with the usual state of blankness.

“Nope, not yet,” she shook her head, before turning thoughtful. "You think I should go now?” she checked, apparently genuinely earnest.

“Er, yeah!” came Sophie’s less than subtle response, though honestly, Parker still didn’t seem to get that any of this was a problem!

* * *

For a person who seemed so active and sometimes so violent, Eliot Spencer liked his peace and quiet. He didn’t tell the team where he lived, not to be rude or mean, but because he did not want his apartment to become as crazy as Nate’s often did. When he wasn’t working, he liked being alone to get on with his own thing - cooking, gardening, reading - solitary pursuits but he liked them just the same, able to find his calm centre somehow when he was left to his own devices like this.

Of course, one member of the Leverage team had seen his apartment, mostly the bedroom, though from that night to this they had never spoken of it. Parker hadn’t come around since then and that suited Eliot just fine. The problem was that, where this certain little thief was concerned, just when you got comfortable and thought everything was cool, she would say or do something to send you into a tailspin.

The second Eliot heard a noise by the window, he was on his feet and battle ready, book dropped onto the coffee table and fists raised. He got a surprise when he realised the black clad figure dropping in feet first onto his living room carpet was someone he knew, though perhaps he ought to have guessed.

“Parker,” he said, taking off his glasses and placing them with his abandoned book. "What the hell are you doing?” he asked curiously, not because she’d come through the window instead of the door, because for her that was normal, but why she was here at all.

“Visiting,” she said easily, shrugging her shoulders, her hands hovering around her pockets then her hips, before dropping back to her sides.

She looked awkward and something was clearly wrong. Eliot studied her a moment, pretty sure from the way she climbed in here and the fact she had no visible marks on her that she hadn’t been physically hurt - that was a good thing. Since offending people and being offended were rarely issues with Parker, he struck that off his mental list too. It kind of left Eliot coming up empty as his team-mate continued to hover by the window, looking around at his furnishings and trinkets, and never directly at the hitter himself.

“Do we have a job or something?” he asked, the only thing he could think of right now as a likely explanation for her being her, though even that was a long shot.

“Not that I know of,” she replied, sparing him a glance, knowing she couldn’t just stand here forever not saying what she came to say. "Um, you know that night a while back,” she said, making some vague gesture with her hand that seemed to signify the time in the past she was talking about. "Y’know, when we had sex?” she said, blunt as ever.

Eliot didn’t even pretend to be shocked by the way she just came out with it, but couldn’t help the smirk that came to his lips at the sound of the question.

“I’m not exactly gonna forget it,” he admitted, folding his arms across his chest as was his usual habit.

The smile slid away some as he thought on things a minute. A little panic crept into Eliot’s head and tickled at his senses. If Parker was bringing up their single night of passion, it couldn’t lead to anything good. He couldn’t imagine she wanted a relationship with him, that she was in love with him or anything, that would be crazy. Sure, it had happened with other girls in his past, one night stands could go wrong sometimes, but Parker wasn’t like that. She didn’t feel that way, she was black and white on stuff like that, or so he’d thought at the time. It had just been sex, a physical release for the two of them, no strings attached, that had been the deal. He couldn’t imagine why she would want to go and bring it up more than a month later, unless...

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted out, her eyes meeting Eliot’s own then, and she was pretty sure she’d never seen him look so completely shocked.

A hundred different emotions seemed to run across his face beneath the coating of surprise that coloured everything. Parker couldn’t blame him for any of them, since she was pretty sure she’d had them already. This was one of the weirdest situations she’d ever found herself in, and that was saying something given the nature of the work she did now and had done in the past.

“What...?” said Eliot eventually, after so long of his mouth opening and closing without a word escaping. "I don’t get it,” he admitted at length.

“What’s not to get?” asked Parker, looking at him like he was the dumb one as she wandered over to the couch and dropped down into the cushions. "I’m pregnant. We’re having a kid,” she said as simply as she could. "You and me, Sparky,” she gestured between them, as Eliot turned to face her and continued to stare.

“Parker, we only slept together one time,” he reminded her, holding up his index finger to reinforce his point. "And we used a condom,” he recalled easily, since he always made sure he was protecting both himself and any women he slept with.

“Actually, we used three because... well, one night but three times,” she showed him the numbers on her fingers just like he had done, ignoring the fact that Eliot looked every kind of uncomfortable having this conversation. "Anyway, one of them didn’t do its job,” she shrugged. "Sophie says they’re not a hundred percent effective. Did you know that?”

“Hold on a second!” the hitter shook his head, looking less confused and more mad now. "You told Sophie about this before you told me?” he asked her angrily, though Parker barely flinched, even though he was leaning over her looking incensed.

“Yes,” she admitted, looking up at him. "I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do,” she told him, a little cross that he was being so off with her. "I’ve never been pregnant before,” she stated what was probably already obvious, slamming her fist into the next couch cushion just because she could.

Eliot knew he shouldn’t be yelling at her. Parker never handled feelings well, and if what she said was true, she was going to be all over the place right now. It was a lot to take in from where he was standing too. She was pregnant, somehow, in spite of the fact they’d used protection. It could happen, he knew that, but it was still close to unbelievable. Had they been in some kind of relationship, sleeping together every night or most nights at least, he might’ve understood it, but the odds were on their side in this. It only took once to make a baby, Eliot was well aware of that, but it still seemed kind of crazy.

“Wow,” he said more to himself than to Parker as he pushed his hair out of his face and turned a whole circle just because he didn’t know where to go from here, or even what to say. "Er... Are you sure about this?” he asked as he turned to face her again.

“Yes, I’m sure I’m pregnant,” she said with an eye-roll she didn’t even try to repress. "And yes, I’m sure you’re the father,” she added flatly. "I haven’t had sex with anybody else lately.”

Eliot took a deep breath and tried to find a little of the calm he had a decent grip on just ten minutes ago. Now he might look okay, but on the inside, he was having a complete fit over this.

“Okay,” he said, sitting himself down at the other end of the couch. "Then I guess we need to have a serious conversation,” he told Parker, who turned her head to peer at him awkwardly.

Yep, this was going to be no fun.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m sorry, okay?” yelled Eliot as Parker leapt up and started pacing the room.

He knew he’d said the wrong thing the second the words were out of his mouth, but this wasn’t exactly a situation he had ever imagined ending up in. Perhaps he wasn’t handling it well, in fact, he knew that he wasn’t, but right now his head was probably as messed up as Parker’s own.

“No, it’s not okay!” she retorted. "How could you even ask that?” she asked, looking angry and sounding the same. "I’ve been the kid nobody wants, Eliot, I couldn’t do that to somebody,” she said firmly, and he knew that he ought to have seen that response coming.

“I know, and I said I was sorry,” he told her again, looking genuine enough that she seemed to accept it.

Maybe she was over-reacting too, though Parker would never admit it, not even to herself really. It was confusing enough to realise she was pregnant, a state she’d never thought too much about until it actually happened to her. If anyone was ever going to get pregnant she always thought it’d be Sophie, she was the mother-type after all. Parker was... well, she wasn’t sure what she was, but she never really thought much about being called Mom by anyone, not until now.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said, more to herself than to Eliot, as she returned to the couch and sat down with a bump, the true reality of the situation perhaps only really hitting her in this moment.

He didn’t know what to say to her. There were options for pregnant women these days, whether he agreed with them or not, and that was what he’d been trying to tell her when she lost it with him. Eliot ought to have known that aborting a pregnancy would set alarm bells ringing in Parker’s head, and that the idea of adoption, given all she’d been through as a child herself, was never going to be something she could do. That left them with only one option to take, to keep the baby, and raise it between them somehow.

The idea of being a father was scary as hell to Eliot, though he wasn’t about to say so. As a younger man he’d always assumed he would grow up, get married, have kids, the whole works, just like everybody else, but things were very different these days. He lived a solitary life and had done for years. Sure, there was the team, and he did care for all of them, they were like a family somehow. Still, the idea of a real conventional family hadn’t crossed his mind in a long time. A wife and child, a little family home with a white picket fence, these were not things meant for guys like him, not anymore.

“Eliot?” Parker’s voice cut through his thoughts, her hand on his arm bringing his eyes to meet her own. "Could you maybe say something?” she urged him, no idea what it was she wanted him to say, truth be told, but hating the silence right now.

“Parker...” he began, really not sure how to continue as he looked at her, his hand covering her own right there on his arm. "Well, you’ve thrown me for a loop, darlin’.” He smiled in spite of everything because it was laugh or cry right now and the latter didn’t really suit him

“Tell me about it,” she sighed. "I mean, me? Pregnant? Kinda crazy.” She laughed lightly, a hollow sound to both their ears. "I guess it could be worse,” she sighed then, happy not to say anymore it seemed.

“Worse?” Eliot prompted, not really sure what she was getting at, so apparently Parker was going to have to explain.

“Well, it’s you.” She shrugged, like it was obvious, though the hitter remained baffled. "I could’ve gone out that night, met some other guy, and then I’d be having his kid,” she explained. "Which would be really awkward because I probably wouldn’t remember his name and he could be anybody, but I know it’s you and you’re... y’know, normal and nice and stuff.” She shrugged, looking away because she just felt weird saying these things to him.

There wasn’t usually much that made Parker awkward and uncomfortable, but then she’d never been pregnant before so everything was new apparently. The way Eliot was looking at her right now made her feel strange too, like he was smiling with his eyes in that weird way only he could. Usually he wasn’t directing that particular look at her so it was a little confusing.

The fact was, Eliot was almost flattered right now. The fact that Parker considered him to be ‘normal and nice and stuff’ was almost sweet. She seemed glad that he was the father of the baby she was carrying, as opposed to a random guy she might’ve picked to be with that night when she had an itch she just couldn’t scratch by herself.

Of course, the fact they liked each other and knew each other pretty well was an advantage, but on the flip side it was going to create problems. They had gotten to know each other through the team, through being recruited into this crazy idea of Nate’s own mind and Sophie’s perseverance. They were the Leverage crew and they were legends, but all that had to change now. There was no way they could carry on running game on bad guys the way they had been with Parker pregnant and Eliot already wondering if he would be as willing to play fast and loose with his own life if he was going to have some little boy or girl calling him Daddy.

“Well, first things first,” he said thoughtfully. "No more jobs for you.”

“What?” Parker squeaked, a sound akin to a mouse in distress.

“C’mon, you know how dangerous what we do is, especially when you’re jumping off high-rises and all,” he reminded her. "You can’t do that in your condition. The harness alone could do damage or something, I don’t know,” he tried to explain, though it felt so strange he hardly knew where to begin.

Parker opened her mouth to make further protests, but already she knew Eliot had a point. Even though she hated the idea of not being able to do what she did best and loved too, she could see that rappelling had to be a no-no for a while. The harnesses she wore were the best ever made, because she designed them herself, but they’d need some serious adjustment if she wasn’t going to put strain on parts of her body that might harm the child she was carrying.

She wasn’t sure where it came from, but the realisation of all that was going to change seemed to hit her like a smack in the face then, and Parker found tears welling up in her eyes. They spilled down her cheeks unchecked, making her react with horror just as soon as she noticed. Her hands went to her face, scrubbing away all evidence of the emotion coursing through her, but it was too late, Eliot had already noticed.

“Hey, Parker...” he said trying to get hold of her hand, but she shied away, getting up off the couch and putting her back to him.

“I’m fine,” she lied blatantly, voice thick with emotion as she bawled like a child.

This day was just full of the weirdest turns of events, Eliot was noticing, as he got to his feet and went over to her. First she was pregnant, then she was complimenting him, and now she was in floods of tears. So far, not a thing was going as it usually would with the little thief he thought he was starting to understand these days. Maybe he never would make sense of her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. He had even more reason to make an effort right now.

“Parker, c’mon,” he urged her, putting a tentative hand to her shoulder and trying to turn her around.

All of a sudden she gave in, turning sharply into his arms and sobbing into Eliot’s shoulder. His arms went around her shaking form on automatic as he tried to comfort her. He hated it when women cried, it never failed to break his heart. As far as he was concerned, men ought to be too tough to cry, at least in public, and they should make sure the women in their lives never had a reason for tears.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she mumbled against his shirt.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he was quick to answer, not really sure why she let out a shaky sort of a laugh at that, but anything was better than the crying, Eliot figured.

“That’s not what you usually say,” said Parker with a watery smile as she looked at him, all red and blotchy from sobbing but none the less pretty somehow.

“Yeah, well.” He rolled his eyes, as he wiped tears away from her cheeks without even thinking about it, just a little surprised when he realised both what he was doing and the fact she was letting him. "Whatever happens, you don’t have to worry. I’m here for you,” he promised, knowing at least it was the right thing to say and do, even if he wasn’t so sure how it was going to work out in the long-term. "Hell, this as much my kid as it is yours, takes two to tango and all.”

“I never understood that phrase,” she told him, brow wrinkling up as it so often did when she was baffled by things other people never even thought about. "Why don’t they just say it takes two to have sex?” she wondered aloud as she flopped down onto the couch once again, feeling a little dumb after her outburst before - it wasn’t like her at all.

“I don’t know, darlin’.” Eliot smirked, already finding her mood swings from tears to smiles a little disorientating and wondering how much worse they might get when her pregnant-self got really hormonal. "You feeling better now?” he checked as he sat down beside her and she continued to stare off into space, no doubt still wondering why people confused an Argentine dance with getting down and dirty.

“I guess,” she sighed after a moments pause, turning her head sideways against the cushions to look his way. "I’m sorry about your shirt,” she apologised, fingers reaching out to the damp patch at his shoulder, but not quite making contact before she retracted her hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her, waving away her concern, after all laundry and such was the last thing they needed to talk about right now.

Talking wasn’t exactly either of their strong points at the best of times, especially when it came to serious things, feelings and emotions. People called guys like Eliot the strong and silent type, and anything out of Parker’s mouth was quirky at best, but rarely serious or important, at least not until ‘I’m pregnant’ escaped her lips. It didn’t get much more real than that, Eliot knew, because he’d sat here before. Not in the exact place and not with this woman, but a similar conversation had taken place many years ago, and it came flooding back to him now like a tidal wave inside his head.

“This ever happened to you before?” he asked Parker then, pretty sure she would say no and not at all surprised when he looked her way and saw she was shaking her head in the negative.

“You?” she asked in kind, curious now he had started the conversation, and yet a little surprised when he nodded his head.

“Yeah,” he told her, turning his head away, eyes staring at a spot on the wall though he was seeing the past it seemed as he explained. "We had a false alarm, that was all it was, but at the time.. yeah, for a while I thought I was gonna be a Daddy.” He smiled sadly at the memory.

“Were you glad, that it was a false alarm?” Parker asked him, curled up in the corner of the couch and talking so quiet he never would have heard her if they weren’t so close and the room wasn’t so quiet but for her voice.

“I don’t know,” admitted Eliot, seeming to come out of his daze all of a sudden as he ran a hand over his face and back through his hair. "Hell, I might’ve been married by now if it wasn’t,” he told Parker with a look she couldn’t read at all.

She looked puzzled for a moment, like she was trying to figure something out. Just when Eliot was going to ask why she was staring at him that way, she told him.

“It was with Aimee, wasn’t it?” she said, barely a question apparently.

“Yeah, it was.” He nodded, feeling strange that he ever started talking about this stuff at all, he never usually did.

Of course, he ought to have known that even Parker could make a guess as to who he was talking about and be right. He never got emotional in front of the team, not ever, and the fact he’d gotten so misty eyed had to mean Aimee. She was the only person who could do this to him, her or the memories of a past spent with her at least.

“You don’t have to marry me, y’know,” Parker told him then, a stark statement amongst a lot of soft and serious memories that made his eyes snap to meet hers in an instant. "In case you were wondering.” She shrugged.

Eliot wasn’t sure whether it made him a bad person that the thought had never crossed his mind, his Momma might certainly think so. Maybe it just proved he’d been out of his home town too long, or just long enough. Mindful of letting himself wander off into too many thoughts of the past, or of worrying Parker by not answering her, he shook his head and let the memories all fall away.

“Thanks.” He smiled crookedly. "I think,” he added when he realised maybe it wasn’t exactly a compliment she had paid him. "Y’know, we’re gonna have to tell the team about this,” he said then, getting them back on track with the present.

Parker let out a heavy sigh, forced once again to think about how she was going to tell Nate and Hardison her news, how awful it was going to be sitting idly by whilst they went out on cons together, leaving her behind. There was no way she was giving up this kid, no way in hell, but not doing what she did best seemed wrong too.

“You think Nate will be mad at us?” she wondered aloud. "I mean, I don’t think when he put the team together he expected for us to make babies.”

“I doubt it,” Eliot agreed, "but he has no right to be mad. He’s not your Daddy, Parker. I know he acts like it sometimes and maybe you don’t mind, but he’s not gonna make you feel bad about this, he doesn’t have the right.”

Parker nodded that she understood, but it didn’t stop her wondering how bad it might be when the time came for her and Eliot to tell the rest of their team, their friends, their family for want of a better term, that the two of them were going to be parents. As crazy as they often told her she was, Parker was sure she’d never been a situation as insane as this in her whole life.


	3. Chapter 3

“Why are you looking at me?” asked Nate as Hardison continued to stare across at him from his desk near the vid-screen, the same thing he had been doing the last five minutes since he arrived.

“You don’t wanna tell me what info you need before the others get here?” the hacker asked with a confused frown. "I mean when you say ‘run it’, man, I ain’t gonna have nothin’ to run.”

Nate then looked just about as baffled as Hardison himself as he glanced between him and Sophie who was just now emerging from the kitchen with an over-sized bag of potato chips in her hand.

“I didn’t call you here,” said the mastermind, shaking his head. "There is no job.”

“But I got a message,” Sophie wrinkled her brow as she came to stand between them and looked from one man to the other. "I just assumed...”

“Once again, to assume has made an ass of u and me,” said Hardison with a smile at his joke, which it seemed Sophie either didn’t understand or didn’t appreciate given the look on her face.

Before anyone had a chance to wonder on the whys and wherefores as to their all being here like this, the explanation walked in the door. Immediately Sophie realised Parker had Eliot on her heels, she guessed what this meeting was really for and she said a silent prayer that the whole thing went somewhat more smoothly than it probably would in reality.

“Just let me tell them!” snapped Parker as she and the hitter walked over to where Nate was sat and dropped down onto the stool between him and Sophie, hands raised in some kind of mock surrender.

“Fine, have it your way!” he told her, looking less than impressed, as Nate looked between the guy next to him and the blonde who was pacing in front of the vid screen now, as he was wont to do himself quite often.

“Would one of you mind explaining why we’re all here?” he asked, a little bored and aggravated by now.

Parker nodded her head as she looked from one member of the team to the other, feeling strange. She’d told Sophie already and Eliot knew the truth, it ought to be simple enough to let Hardison and Nate know about her pregnancy, and yet the words were sticking in her throat. Maybe the reality hadn’t really hit her until she said it out loud the first time, maybe not even then. Perhaps it only became the real deal when Eliot found out what they’d done on their one night together, and started talking about the future and the gravity of the situation...

“Um, yeah,” she said at length, eyes flitting from Hardison to Nate and back, then to Sophie who nodded encouragingly for her to go on. "So, I’m kinda pregnant,” she blurted out suddenly, watching as both mastermind and hacker gained wide-eyed expressions.

“You’re... You’re kinda pregnant?” echoed Nate, shaking his head some as if he wanted to clear out his ears and make sure he’d heard her properly, after all, she wasn’t making much sense on so many levels.

“She is pregnant,” Eliot confirmed, knowing that however much she wanted to do things her way, it was still wrong to let Parker stand up there in front of everybody on her own right now. "We’re having a kid,” he explained as clearly as he could, getting up from his seat and going to stand by the thief.

“I’m sorry, we?” it was Hardison’s turn now to shake his head in disbelief. "We’re having a kid?” he repeated Eliot’s words, looking equal amounts stunned and hurt. "You two?” he double-checked, pointing between the two of them, absolutely sure there had to be some mistake here.

“Yeah, us two,” Parker confirmed with a single nod. "We made that clear, right?” she said, turning to Eliot, but he never flinched.

His eyes were fixed on the hacker, who in some strange way he’d come to see as a brother of sorts over these past few years of working together. He hated to think Hardison was hurt because of this, but if he had been in any doubt about that before, he knew it now for certain.

“No way, man,” he said, getting up from his seat. "No frickin’ way!” he declared, as he made for the door.

“Hardison!” Eliot called after him, hurrying to catch up to him when it was clear his friend was not going to stop walking.

He followed him out of the door and up the stairs, only catching up to him on the roof. It was weird, Eliot always thought it would be Parker he ended up chasing onto roof tops, but anyone who wanted to get away and think might choose such a place. It was open, clear, free of people and distractions... and a hell of a drop to the ground, he noted as he got a view over the edge he could’ve done without.

“Dammit, Hardison, will you just listen to me!” he said, dragging his attention back to the matter at hand.

“Seriously? Listen to you? Seriously?” he said pointedly, a laugh escaping his lips that hadn’t the least bit of humour in it. "That’s funny, man, ‘cause y’know I thought you were listening, all those times when I made it damn clear how I felt about Parker!” he practically exploded, pointing back down towards the apartment where they had left said girl behind with Nate and Sophie.

“I know, man, and I’m sorry,” the hitter gave his rare apology with as much sincerity as he had in him. "C’mon, you know I didn’t do this just to be an asshole and screw you over, we just...”

“How long?” Hardison’s question was almost too quiet to be heard across the distance that lie between himself and Eliot right now, but he heard enough to stop talking himself. "How long?!” he repeatedly, much more loudly when no answer came. "How long have you and Parker been seeing each other?”

Eliot honestly wasn’t sure that any answer he gave was going to make this better. The truth was the only way to go, obviously, lying would only make matters worse. Still, as well as he knew Hardison at this point, he still wasn’t sure how he would take the news.

“We’re not... It’s not like we’re dating or anything,” he explained, pushing his hair out of his face as the wind blew it in all directions. "It was one night and it just happened, alright? It wasn’t supposed to get this complicated.”

Hardison looked less than impressed, to the point where he turned away, unwilling to even look at his friend right now. Honestly, he wasn’t sure which answer would’ve hurt more, knowing the woman he cared for so much was seeing the guy he saw as a brother because they were actually in love, or the actual truth that they had some one night stand. The answer was that neither response was going to make him feel any better, and he wondered why he even asked in the first place.

“Hardison,” said Eliot, coming up behind him, putting a hand to the younger man’s shoulder which was hastily shrugged off. "C’mon, man, it’s not like you’re dating her or anything. She didn’t cheat on you. We didn’t-”

“You think that makes it okay?” his so-called friend asked him as he turned around and faced him, looking as mad as Eliot had ever seen him. "You dogged me, man! So maybe Parker doesn’t totally get how I feel about her, that’s cool, but you knew, Eliot! You knew!” he reminded him, pointing angrily with his index finger and hammering his point home.

There really wasn’t anything Eliot could say. He was sorry, of course he was, but he’d said that already and apparently it wasn’t good enough. He hated that he’d hurt his friend this way, he truly did, but he also hated being yelled at like this. Eliot Spencer didn’t stand and take crap from anyone, whether he deserved it or not, and right now he had bigger things to deal with than Hardison’s feelings being hurt.

“I’ve said I’m sorry, man, and I meant it,” he repeated, his own anger at both himself and this messed-up situation bubbling up inside like hot lava now. "But you have got to get over yourself, okay? I didn’t take anything from you, because you never had it!” he said, just as mad as the hacker by now and sounding a lot more so just because he had way more practice at being angry. "It’s been years, Hardison,” he continued, even when the hacker tried to cut in. "Years, and you never said jack to Parker about being any more than friends! You think she would’ve slept with me if she really knew how you felt?”

“You slept with her, knowing just how I felt!” Hardison snapped back, the pair of them toe to toe by now and the hacker seemingly suicidal for getting this close to a fight with a guy like Eliot.

“Yeah, but I’m the asshole here, remember?” the hitter argued, jamming his finger into his own chest, fighting himself to save from striking out when he knew he’d regret it. "She’s not, Hardison. Parker’s a good person, and she doesn’t hurt people on purpose, it’s not her!”

That realisation seemed to hit the younger man all at once as he backed up a couple of steps and let out a long breath. He wanted to keep fighting and arguing, if only because being mad was better than feeling like he wanted to burst into tears like a little kid. This hurt, deep down inside, it was tearing holes in him, mostly because he knew Eliot had a point. Everything he said was true. After all this time, if Hardison wanted to get closer to Parker he could’ve tried harder, should’ve made more of a move, but he never dared. Instead he just let himself believe that every time Parker craved pretzels she was sending him a sign, that each smile and wave meant something more. Now it seemed he had the proof that he was wrong, and it was all too late. The more he thought on it, the more Hardison realised a lot of his anger was borne of frustration at himself.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t still mad at Eliot, because in essence he had still betrayed him. It wasn’t cool for a brother to go after a girl when he knew his friend had feelings for her, whatever those feelings might be or however long they’d been there. Of course, arguing about it was childish and ultimately would prove pointless. Whichever way he sliced it, Eliot and Parker had done what they had done, and as a consequence she was having his baby.

“No amount of yellin’ is gonna change what’s been done.” Hardison sighed, feeling defeated, because there really was nothing else he could say.

Shaking his head, he walked past Eliot, bumping his shoulder a little out of defiance if nothing else, as he headed back to the door that led downstairs.

* * *

“I had a feeling that might happen.” Sophie sighed as she put her arm around Parker who had come to drop into the seat between her and Nate now.

“You knew about this?” he asked then, looking even more stunned than he had just a minute before.

“Only since yesterday,” the grifter admitted. "And it was hardly my place to go broadcasting it, especially since Eliot didn’t even know yet.”

Nate nodded that she was at least right in what she’d said there, but this was quite a lot for him to wrap his head around. It really hadn’t ever occurred to him that parenthood would be an issue within the team. He didn’t even see romance as getting in the way of their cons. Hardison showed an interest in Parker that was sometimes difficult to read, but as far as he knew Eliot had never shown any signs of liking her that way. Clearly, he was wrong about that part.

“Couldn’t you all have just stuck with your brothers and sister bickering thing?” he sighed as he put a hand to his forehead, feeling a headache coming on and seriously considering a good stiff drink.

“Nate!” Sophie immediately snapped at him, hugging Parker close to her, not all that surprised to realise the blonde was stiff as a board against her side, uncomfortable as ever with random hugging that she didn’t initiate. "That’s not helping.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.” He shrugged, completely at a loss. "I didn’t expect this.”

“Neither did I,” huffed Parker. "I thought we’d just have great sex and move on.”

“Oh, I can’t hear this,” the mastermind complained, getting up fast and going straight to the kitchen cupboard where the emergency supply of alcohol was kept.

These days he wasn’t quite so bad with his drinking. He couldn’t give it up and had no wish to, but it was much less of a problem to stay in control these days. Of course that was before a member of his team, his pseudo-daughter no less, showed up at his apartment saying she was pregnant and then going on to describe the ‘great sex’ that made the baby. No, Nate Ford really wasn’t equipped for handling this at all!

“So far this is going really well.” Parker rolled her eyes. "Hardison is so mad he walked out, you’re already back on the booze,” she said, peering back over the couch at him. "And Eliot said I can’t even do my job anymore.” She sighed heavily.

She looked to Sophie as if hoping she would say something comforting, as usual, but from the look on the grifter’s face it seemed nothing obvious came to mind. The fact was, there was no way around it. There were an awful lot of things that were not hampered by pregnancy, but much of Parker’s repertoire was very firmly on the unsuitable activities list. Fortunately, Sophie didn’t have to say anything, and neither did Nate come to that, as the door to the apartment swung open and Hardison walked in with Eliot close on his heels. Though neither looked exactly cheerful, they seemed to have called a truce somewhere between their storming out and storming back in.

“Okay, so now we’re done with the theatrics and all,” said Eliot seriously, glancing to Hardison and then to Parker as he addressed the whole room. "You think we can have a serious conversation now?”

“Of course,” Sophie agreed, "but where to start seems to be the biggest issue.”

“Without wanting to get my head bitten off...” said Nate as he walked up behind the couch, signalling for attention with the glass of whiskey in his hand. "Can I suggest we start with the impact this is going to have on the team and the work we do?” he asked, knowing that anything else was going to involve either Parker mentioning sex again, or a whole lot of emotional turmoil that he wasn’t willing to deal with til he was way more drunk than this.

Eliot nodded once, as if he was in agreement, but then looked over at Parker sat before him.

“That work for you, darlin’?” he asked her, not entirely surprised when she flopped forward onto the desk with a huff .

“Yeah, great,” she sighed. "The great big conversation about how Parker can’t play with the team anymore,” she said grumpily.

“Hey, c’mon,” said Eliot, moving closer and making her look at him. "There’ll still be stuff you can do,” he told her.

“Yeah, like what?” she wanted to know, first looking at the hitter and then around at the rest of the team, one by one.

The silence was deafening.


	4. Chapter 4

Parker stared into the mirror, not exactly loving the view. She didn’t care much about her appearance as a rule, not all into make up and hair products like most women, despite many an attempt by Sophie to get her interested. Still, she always believed she was pretty enough. Put her in a dress and heels, most guys paid attention. The wink and shimmy was always useful, when it didn’t go wrong...

Unfortunately, Parker wasn’t exactly looking like much of a catch in this particular moment. She always heard it said that pregnant ladies glowed somehow, and yet right now, she looked decidedly pale, drawn, sick, and every kind of non-glowy. To be fair, she had just thrown up what seemed to be everything she’d eaten for a week, and felt like she’d do it all over again if there was anything left to do it with. If this was what having a kid was like, she really wasn’t enjoying it so far.

It had been bad enough when she and Eliot told the team about their future child. Instantly there was a list as long as a persons leg of all the activities Parker was now banned from taking part in. No more rappelling because the harness might cause damage. No more crawling through air vents on her stomach because that really would be a problem. No contact with anyone in the least bit dangerous, and a whole lot of staying in the van with Hardison was prescribed for her so-called condition. Parker was not amused.

With a sigh, she backed up some from the bathroom mirror and stared at her own frowning features. So far she didn’t like this whole pregnant thing much. Glancing down, she pulled her top and pants away from each other and gazed at the flesh in between. Her stomach was almost as flat as ever it was, no real sign of any change that she could see. She did feel different, in a weird way, but she certainly didn’t look pregnant as far as she could tell. She didn’t have a huge amount of experience with this kind of thing, so honestly, Parker wasn’t overly sure she knew what she was supposed to feel or look like.

A tap on the door broke her train of thought and she spun around as a voice called to her.

“Hey, Parker?” said Eliot. "You okay in there?” he checked.

The thief opened her mouth to answer and quickly closed it again. To say she was fine would be a lie as nausea rose in her throat just the moment she moved. Of course if she admitted she felt bad the others would make a fuss, and besides, no matter how much she trusted her team-mates, she still didn’t much like looking weak and frail in front of anybody.

“Parker?” Eliot called again, a hint of worry in his voice by now because she hadn’t answered.

“You can come in,” she said, instead of either confirming or denying her state of health, as she sat down carefully on the edge of the bath-tub, her head in her hands.

At least this way only the hitter would see her suffering, not the rest of the team. She heard the door open and close again as Eliot came in, and then realised he was now crouched in front of her, trying to see her face that she was hiding.

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted, though she knew she appeared no better than she had a moment before from the way he was looking at her.

“Well, that’s why we’re gonna go see a doctor,” he reminded her of the appointment they needed to keep, hence his chasing her out of the bathroom apparently.

Of course he was concerned for her welfare as well, but he’d been talking about this trip to the doctor’s office for two days straight and seemed determined that no matter how much Parker argued, she was going to go.

“I still don’t see why I need a doctor to tell me anything,” she sighed. "I’m puking, I skipped a period, and the test from the drug store had the little blue line that means pregnant,” she reeled off, counting each of the three points on her fingers. "I don’t see what else he’s gonna say, except telling me I’m not allowed to do anything fun, and hey, you and Nate already did that,” she said with an unamused look.

Eliot didn’t know what to say to her. He did feel bad for Parker that she was suffering, both with the side-effects of her pregnancy and also with having to give up so many things she loved to do for the foreseeable future. Still, that didn’t change the fact that she did need to have a doctor confirm both her pregnancy and the state of her health. Things went wrong too often when women were carrying kids, and Eliot didn’t want that happening, not to Parker, and not to any child of his.

“Look, darlin’” he said with a sigh of his own as he met her eyes. "I know this all seems pretty huge right now, and honestly, that’s ‘cause it is,” he admitted, "but we can handle this, right? You’re not alone, I’m right here,” he promised.

A strange feeling went through Parker then as she gazed down at Eliot crouched before her. She had come to trust him over their years spent together on the team, and to like him a whole lot more than she ever expected to. Hardison always said they were a little more than a family and he was right, because he and Nate and Sophie had so easily become her brother and parent figures. Eliot was always different, he did older brother pretty well as a rule, but she could never really put him in that role because all too often her eyes wandered to his form when he had to change clothes in front of her and such. She got stirrings inside in ways that a brother never ought to make a sister feel, that was for sure. It was so strange to Parker that she couldn’t put Eliot in a pigeon-hole like she did with other people, couldn’t assign him a role in her life all that easily. All she knew for sure was that he was always there were she needed him, and for a guy who could be so tough and violent, he could be the sweetest gent  
lest person she ever knew her whole life.

Still, nothing prepared her for this moment, for the wave of warmth that passed through her as he promised to always be here for her no matter what happened. Parker knew that men up and left women when they got pregnant. She knew how some guys would bolt at the very idea of kids, but not Eliot. They weren’t even dating, they just had one night of fun and the consequences had been major, but he was still here, and it seemed like he had no plans to go anywhere for a good long while. The realisation of it brought tears to Parker’s eyes that she didn’t understand, and so she made light of them.

“God, this emotional thing is gonna get real old, real fast,” she forced out a chuckle at her own dumb behaviour as she wiped her eyes with her back of her hand, "but y’know... thanks, for being here,” she said feeling stupid somehow as she put an awkward hand on Eliot’s shoulder and patted it in some sort of friendly gesture, he assumed.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, not sure what else to say as he stood up and held out a hand to her. "You ready to go now?” he asked, glad when she nodded and put her hand into his after just a few seconds pondering.

It was strange to think that just over a month ago the two of them had been as close as two people could get and had made this baby she was apparently carrying. Now Parker looked as if she felt odd just taking his hand, but Eliot didn’t wonder on it too much. As far as he could tell, the little thief understood sex, the physicalities of it, the release and all. It was the little gestures, kisses and hand holding and hugs, that were so foreign to her, things she had never had and really never expected to be offered. All that was going to change, he suspected, over the next few months, though now didn’t seem like a sensible time to talk about it or even ponder on it as he led Parker down the stairs to where Nate and Sophie waited on the couch.

“How’re you doing, sweetie?” asked the grifter kindly as she looked to her friend.

“I threw up, a lot,” the blonde admitted, pushing hair that had fallen out of her ponytail back off her face, "but I’m fine,” she forced a smile, feeling better somehow for Eliot’s hand holding onto her own still.

“Well, we’ll be here when you’re done at the doctor’s office,” said Nate, trying his best to look genuine and happy even though it wasn’t exactly what he felt. "You come back, tell us how it all went, okay?”

Parker nodded without really paying much mind to what had been said as she and Eliot headed for the door, only to have it open just as soon as they reached it. Hardison stood on the other side, staring a moment as his eyes went from Eliot to Parker to their adjoined hands and away. Nobody was sure who ought to speak first or what they ought to say. The hacker had thrown in the odd comment during their discussion two days ago about how Parker’s pregnancy would effect the team, but he had been remarkably quiet and nobody had seen him since. They certainly hadn’t expected him to show up at Nate’s today, and yet here he was.

“Hey,” he said after the longest pause ever. "I figured I should be here, y’know, for when y’all get back from your appointment.” He shrugged, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. "Gotta know if you and the bun in your oven are doing okay, mama,” he told Parker with a smile that Eliot knew was forced, even if the blonde beside him had no idea.

She seemed pleased enough and let her hand slip from Eliot’s own as she reached to hug Hardison, however briefly. Over her shoulder, the hitter saw his brother’s pained expression and hated himself just a little bit more for what had happened here. It was sweet torture for the guy to get this close to Parker and know she would probably never be his now. The woman just had no idea what she was doing to him.

“We should go,” said Eliot, reaching for her hand again just the moment she let go of Hardison.

She nodded, finding a little wave for her team before they left. The door closed behind them with a thud and Parker never even realised that the hacker had his eyes closed again, willing away the pain that was still very much real inside of him.

Eliot knew without seeing just what the guy was going through. Okay, so maybe the last thing Parker needed right now was emotional distress but there was no way they could carry on in this situation, he decided, without her being told of Hardison’s feelings and how she was hurting them, however inadvertent it was.

It was when they’d got into his truck and started the drive to the doctor’s office that Eliot brought up the subject he knew needed to be broached.

“Parker... Uh, y’know, babe, we need to talk about Hardison,” he said awkwardly, keeping his eyes on the road, not only because any responsible driver should but because looking at her right now was only going to hamper his attempts at talking about this.

“What about him?” she asked innocently as she leant over to mess with the radio, trying to find a song she liked. "I’m glad he’s not still mad at me for the whole pregnant thing. I don’t think I really get why he was in the first place...” she mused, at which Eliot cut in.

“He was never mad at you, Parker,” he pointed out. "He was mad at me, because... well, because he likes you,” he said awkwardly, hoping more than believing that she would understand what he was getting at.

After all, this was Parker and being subtle never did work. She liked things straight up, black and white, like she would say it, and maybe Eliot should have remembered that, since it might’ve saved the frown on her face right now.

“I like him too.” She shrugged, straightening herself in the seat now she was satisfied with the music she had found on the radio. "He’s part of the team, part of the family,” she went on. "Maybe the best foster brother I ever had actually... one of them anyway.”

Eliot winced at that on behalf of the guy he too saw as a brother. It didn’t matter if the two guys saw each other as siblings, but it was clear at this point that neither saw Parker as a sister. It seemed she was quite happy to assign Hardison the brother role, just as easily as she put Sophie and Nate into the Mom and Dad boxes on her pseudo-family tree. Eliot was the one that didn’t fit, that she must like in a different way to the point where they had slept together. Now he was forced to explain to her that her ‘brother’ liked her just that way - she was going to freak out! Still, as he’d already established, she had to be told, and straight out was the best way to save any further confusion.

“Okay, here goes nothin’,” he said more to himself than her, as he pulled into a parking space outside the doctor’s office, shut off the engine and turned to face her. "Parker, you might see Hardison like a brother, but he always saw you as... as girlfriend material,” he said, for lack of a better phrase.

Hell, Eliot had never seen the woman’s eyes go that wide in the whole time he’d known her, and he’d seen her shocked and surprised plenty of times over. She really had no idea that Hardison liked her, not even an inkling of it. She saw brother when she looked at him and always figured he felt similar about her apparently. The poor girl was in an over-riding state of shock right now, and he felt a little bad for doing that to her, but it had to be done.

“Huh,” she said after a long pause. "Wow. I mean, he hit on me a couple of times, kind of, I think..." she thought on it before continuing, "I mean, he's not like a real brother, 'cause hello, I made out with him for cons and stuff, but mostly, yeah, like family, not like... Wow,” she repeated, not really sure what else to say. "He was always the brother type, y’know, in my head?” she said, almost sadly as if her whole dream family illusion had just been shattered somehow. "I thought maybe you would be too, but that didn’t work out so good, I mean, you’re way too hot for that!” she declared, like it was just another thing to say.

Eliot wasn’t sure whether to be amused or flattered by the sentiment and fast realised he was both, though he tried not to laugh in case she was offended.

“Yeah, well, truth be told,” he said, looking sideways at her. "Crazy little sister might’ve worked for you if you weren’t so hot yourself,” he admitted, not willing to turn his head enough to see if she was blushing.

The silence turned uncomfortable then, neither sure what to say. It was dumb, they’d slept together for God sakes, it ought to be obvious they found each other physically attractive, and yet the words had never been said til now. Of course this was not where the conversation had started or anything like where Eliot had intended it to go. His plan was to talk about Hardison and ensure that Parker handled herself better around the hacker. For a long time the pair had danced around each other, and Eliot had been almost amused by the way Hardison took every possible mixed signal Parker threw his way as a come on, when the truth was she was kind of oblivious to the fact that every bag of pretzels she ate, or smiled she shared was being taken as a sign of attraction she probably didn't feel.

“So yeah, go easy on Hardison,” Eliot said eventually, glancing over at Parker who still looked a little shocked by this car journey’s revelations. "Maybe don’t push the pregnancy stuff at him too much, okay?”

“Okay,” she nodded, determined to try her best to be all thoughtful and considerate of other peoples feelings, even if only this once, because Hardison did matter a lot to her, just maybe not in the way he had thought.

“Okay then, Doctor’s appointment,” said Eliot too suddenly, getting out of the car and encouraging Parker to do the same.

She huffed as she complied, a little disappointed to realise this hadn’t been forgotten amongst everything else. A further thought hit her then that made her both frown ad wince.

“Wait a second,” she said worriedly. "What does Nate see me as?”


	5. Chapter 5

“Nate? Nate!” Sophie tried waving her hand in front of his face to get his attention, and finally seemed to succeed as his eyes met hers.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asked with such a vague expression that the grifter had no doubts that he hadn’t heard anything she’d said for at least the last ten minutes.

She already knew that Hardison wasn’t dealing well with this whole situation, and to be honest she wasn’t surprised. They all knew he had feelings for Parker, feelings he never acted on but they were there all the same. He was being an adult about it at least, initial reaction not withstanding. His being here today clearly meant a lot to Parker, and Eliot too, Sophie would guess. Still, it was clear he was struggling, because just as soon as she started to mention the baby, he had made an excuse to leave the room. He hadn’t come back yet, though the grifter was not concerned. It wasn’t as if he was likely to be doing anything other than making use of the games console he kept in the next room, albeit on the plasma screen there rather than the six-piece vid screen.

As for Nate, Sophie really didn’t know what to make of his recent non-reaction to the team’s situation, which was why she had brought up the topic in the first place, only to find he wasn’t even listening!

“This bothers you more than you’re telling me,” she said, not a question but a definite statement as she leaned her head on her hand, her elbow on the back of the couch. "Is it how it will effect the cons or...?”

“Yes, and no,” said the mastermind thoughtfully peering into the glass held in his hand. "Both, if I’m honest,” he sighed as he gulped down what remained of his whiskey.

Immediately he got to his feet to go fetch the bottle and refill the glass, which didn’t thrill Sophie at all.

“Talk to me, Nate,” she urged him. "Of all people, I would hope you can talk to me by now.”

“I’d love to talk to you, Sophie,” he sighed one more time as he leant across the kitchen counter and contemplated the double he’d just poured himself. "but honestly, I don’t know where to start,” he admitted, swallowing the whiskey down fast, and placing the glass back on the counter with a thud. "Parker is pregnant,” he said as if realising it for the first time. "All I keep thinking is she’s just a kid herself. Is that crazy?” he asked, feeling as if maybe he was going nuts right now.

“No, not really,” said Sophie with a smile she couldn’t help as she walked over and leaned on the opposite side of the counter facing him. "Nate, as much as we’re a team, we’re also a family. You know you’re not the only who sees things the way you do. You, me, and the kids, right?” she said with a knowing look as he nodded.

“But they’re grown up people, Soph,” he reminded her. "Hell, I’m not even legally old enough to be Eliot’s father, but Parker, she... Oh, she’d wanna kill me for saying this,” he said, covering his face with his hands a moment, "but I look at her sometimes and I see... my little girl,” he smiled sadly. "The daughter I never had.”

“That’s not crazy,” Sophie promised him as she took a hold of his hands in hers. "And she wouldn’t be angry or upset at the idea of being your daughter,” she said definitely. "Honestly, I think she’d be thrilled to know you love her that much.”

“Maybe,” he mumbled, reaching for the bottle to refill his glass again, though Sophie’s hand on his arm stopped him.

Nate looked across at the grifter, his eyes meeting hers. She didn’t need to say a word, he knew what she was thinking. His getting drunk wasn’t going to help, any more than it had before when he needed to deal with Sam’s death, or anything else that got on top of him. Talking might help, but drinking himself into a stupor wouldn’t.

“You think they’re ready to be parents, really?” he asked, putting the bottle down.

“I don’t know,” was Sophie’s honest reply as she capped the abandoned whiskey and then rounded the counter to put the coffee pot on. "I don’t think even people who plan for pregnancies are ever truly prepared, I mean, there’s so much to think about.” She shook her head as she busied herself with making them a drink that was much better for them than alcohol. "For Parker and Eliot, I mean, I can’t imagine either of them expected this to happen, not just with each other, but ever really.”

“And it’s not just being a parent,” Nate chimed in. "I mean, that’s tough enough,” he said, speaking from experience, "but the jobs they do, the jobs we all do, I just... I can’t see where a baby is going to fit”

Sophie opened her mouth to answer but quickly closed it again when she realised she had nothing to say that would be of use. She had her own worries on that score, wondering how they would all cope as a team with a child to think of. Getting through Parker’s pregnancy was the easy part in a lot of ways, just eight or nine months as things stood now, and then she would be potentially fit and able to do her job again. Of course the difference would be that she would have a tiny helpless baby to take care of, and even if a minder could be found for the child, it was unlikely that Parker, and moreover Eliot, would be quite so willing to put themselves in the line of fire when there was a son or daughter at home waiting for them, depending on them.

“I suppose we’re just going to have to cross each bridge as we come to it.” Sophie shrugged, completely at a loss. "It’s what we’ve always done up to now.”

Nate couldn’t deny she was right, just as she was about drinking never actually helping him when he started to stress on things. For lack of knowing what else to do, he moved to get two mugs out of the top cupboard for Sophie to pour the coffee into, then in a strange moment of honesty and clarity put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you sometimes,” he told her, making her smile as she looked up and answered him.

“Only sometimes?”

* * *

“You doin’ okay there?” asked Eliot as he started the drive back to Nate’s apartment from the doctor’s office.

Parker hadn’t said much the whole time they were in the place or since they got out into the truck. She answered questions when they were asked, and mercifully not in too much detail when the doctor asked about the conception and whether this was a planned event or not. The hysterical laughter at that point maybe didn’t look so good but Eliot guessed the Doc was probably used to weird pregnant lady reactions so probably didn’t pay much mind to her.

The silence was bothering him now. Second guessing what people were thinking was never easy, but with Parker it was damn near impossible.

“Doctors keep secrets, right?” she said suddenly, looking up at him with a little worry in her eyes.

“Sure,” Eliot assured her as he glanced her way and nodded his agreement. "It’s a confidentiality thing, a law.”

“Cool.” She smiled then, only briefly but it was still a good sign to the hitter. "I mean, I figured I should give my real name and all so...”

“That’s your real name?” he checked, eyes coming off the road again, even though Eliot should’ve known better. "Grace Parker?”

“Yup,” she replied, popping the p, as she leaned back in the seat, eyes focused out of the windshield. "It’s weird, I haven’t heard it in so long, I almost forgot what it was.” She giggled. "But that’s my name. I always liked just the Parker part better.” She shrugged, and without another word spoken or a chance for Eliot to react to what she’d said, she turned on a dime as Parker so often did. "What’s foe-lick acid anyway?” she asked, squinting at the item in her hand on which the words were written.

“Thats folic acid, Parker,” Eliot told her with the correct pronounciation as he rolled his eyes and tried to keep most of his concentration on driving as they came up to the intersection. "And it’s good for you and the baby. ‘Course if you ate decently that would help too,” he pointed out, not at all surprised when she started arguing about that too.

“I eat when I’m hungry.” She shrugged. "That’s how to works, right?”

“Yeah, that’s how it works, but it's not when you eat as much as what you eat,” he tried to explain to her. "That junk you like so much isn’t good for you, and it’s certainly not good for our kid,” he told her, turning the next corner and pulling up outside McRory’s Place.

As he shut off the engine and looked her way, Eliot found Parker was staring at him like he had two heads.

“What?” he asked, thinking if he’d been eating he’d wonder if he had food on his face from the way she was looking at him right now.

“Our kid,” she echoed the words he had said without even thinking about it. "You said ‘our kid’. I don’t know, it just sounded... weird,” she told him, "but in a kind of nice weird way, y’know?” she said, almost wishing she hadn’t spoken at all now because she must sound really dumb, not being able to explain herself.

“Yeah, I know,” said Eliot with a warm smile that made Parker feel better.

For all those times when he told her she was strange or there was something wrong with her, it seemed that Eliot totally got her these days, and Parker liked that. She never really had people that understood her before, and yet her little family of thieves seemed to most of the time, and none so much as the hitter. Like she told him in their first conversation about her pregnancy, Parker was glad that instead of some random guy it was Eliot that was to be the father of her child. She had no doubts that he was going to play Daddy just fine, and she was certain in his ability to be there for her, help her out, even take care of her if she really needed it.

They headed on up to Nate’s apartment without another word. The gang wanted to know how the doctor’s appointment went and honestly Parker just wanted to get it over with. Her mind was racing some given what Eliot had told her in the truck about Hardison having romantic feelings for her. She had at least been relieved to hear that Nate’s feelings towards her were strictly paternal - that was a definite ‘phew’ moment.

It wasn’t just worry about Hardison that had her wanting this meeting to be over fast, Parker realised, as she ran up the stairs behind Eliot, feeling completely out of it by the time she got to the top. She staggered a little as she rounded the banister rail, glad to have the hitter’s arm there to grab onto, truth be told.

“Hey, you okay?” he checked, as she bent over some, trying to catch her breath.

“Yeah... I think so,” she said after a moment. "I think maybe I just need sleep, and maybe food,” she said as she thought on it.

“When did you last eat?” he asked then, recalling that she’d thrown up spectacularly before they headed out.

“Um... I don’t know,” Parker admitted, feeling like a naughty child as Eliot fixed her with a serious look then. "Maybe some cereal last night?” she guessed, folding her arms and dropping her eyes to the floor in a attempt to avoid his gaze.

“Seriously?” he rolled his eyes. "You are gonna learn to take care of yourself, Parker, I’m gonna make sure of that, if it’s the last thing I do, you got that?” he told her firmly, as he opened the door to Nate’s apartment and ushered her inside.

“Yes, sir!” she over-did the compliance, complete with mock salute as she marched past him and right into the living room, dropping down onto the couch beside Sophie who had been engrossed by the shopping channel apparently.

“Hey, sweetie,” the grifter greeted her friend with a smile. "How’d it go?” she asked as Nate came back from the kitchen where he’d been washing up coffee mugs and returned to his chair.

Eliot perched on the arm of the couch beside Parker and waited for her to answer Sophie’s question, but she only shrugged.

“Everything’s fine,” he answered for her. "Doc gave Parker some folic acid and I’m gonna be helping her with her diet from now on, since she can’t be trusted to do it herself.”

“I’m not a kid,” she complained, arms folded across her chest. "I’m having one, remember?”

“Yes, Parker, we know,” Nate cut in before the pair could start bickering like teenage siblings again, because given the circumstances that was all kinds of inappropriate to him now. "And we all just want to help you along with your situation,” he assured her. "We all... care,” he said, a little awkward as most men were when it came to verbalising feelings, emotions, and niceties.

“Yes, we do,” said Hardison as he emerged from the other room at the sound of his friends voices. "So, all is good with this little Parker or Eliot that’s growin’ inside o’ you, right?”

“Yeah, so they tell me.” Parker nodded, looking to the hitter with sudden panic that nobody else really understood. "But, um, we don’t need to keep on talking about this, right? Let’s... let’s talk about food some more!” she encouraged Eliot. "C’mon, give me that food groups speech that you love so much,” she urged him.

Though he wasn’t exactly happy at being ordered around, or having his serious point turned into some kind of joke, Eliot did at least see what Parker was trying to do. He had asked her to go easy on Hardison, to not push the baby stuff in front of him, and that was what she was trying her best to do, even if it did come off as her being her normal wacky self to everyone else in the room.

“I thought we were going to hear everything that happened at the doctor’s appointment?” said Sophie, just a little disappointed apparently. "I mean, how long 'til they can do a scan and we can see one of those picture thingies?” she asked, making random gestures as she struggled for the right terms to use.

“Sonogram,” Nate told her with a nostalgic smile that soon gave way to more melancholy memories. "It’s called a sonogram, and those don’t happen for a while.”

“Nah, we got another appointment in a few weeks though for a doppleganger something-or-other,” said Eliot, looking to Parker for some help but she just shrugged, unable to be of assistance.

“Doppler,” Hardison piped up, catching everyone’s attention. "As in the doppler effect? Seriously? You guys don’t even...” he didn’t bother finishing the question as he realised it was fruitless, four blank expressions staring back at him. "Basically, they put kinda like a microphone on there,” he said with an awkward look. "And they can hear the baby, like the heartbeat and all.”

“It’s heart is beating in there?” asked Parker, suddenly trying to get her ear to her stomach and finding the manoeuvre impossible.

“Parker, sweetie, you can’t just... It doesn’t work that way,” Sophie told her, trying not to laugh as she encouraged her to sit up again. "Just wait it out to your next appointment, okay?”

The thief nodded her agreement then, and an uncomfortable silence fell over the team. Nobody knew what to say or do for the best. Talking about the baby was awkward for everybody, offering to go downstairs for a stiff drink was impossible, and planning a job just as tricky right now. The quiet was shattered suddenly by a loud rumble from Parker’s stomach, reminding her and Eliot both that she needed to eat.

“Looks like I’ll be in the kitchen,” he said as he slid off the end of the couch, tying his hair back as he walked away.

“I’ll set the table,” offered Sophie, getting up to.

“I think we’re running a little low on some things,” said Nate with a thoughtful expression. "I’ll run out to the store.”

“I’ll drive,” Hardison offered, mindful of how much the level in the whiskey bottle had gone down already today.

To his credit, Nate didn’t argue, just went with the plan.

Now alone in the living area, Parker looked around at the empty space surrounding her.

“Guess I’ll just sit here and... be pregnant,” she shrugged, sighing heavily.

Sitting really wasn’t her idea of fun, though she was incredibly tired right now, so maybe she’d just shut her eyes for five minutes... or more.


	6. Chapter 6

Though the afternoon had started out awkward following Parker and Eliot’s visit to the doctors office, things soon fell into their usual groove. It was almost possible to forget the impending upheavals that were going to come as Parker grew larger and then eventually gave birth to the child she had made with Eliot. For tonight it seemed the team just needed to relax and talk of other things a while, and it did everybody the world of good.

Each member of the pseudo-family shared tales from their past, old cons they had pulled and near-misses they’d had, places they’d travelled to and people they had met. Reminiscing of their own jobs as a team came up as well, as they sat around the table enjoying the delicious meal that Eliot had cooked up for them. The hitter managed not to bring up food groups anymore, or anything about healthy diets, though when Parker did her level best to avoid her vegetables he shot her a warning look from across the table that soon had her dutifully tucking in.

There was a briefly awkward moment when Sophie began pouring everyone a glass of wine. Though he didn’t like it much, Eliot kept his mouth shut when Hardison fetched a substitute glass of orange soda for the little thief. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest choice, but a couple of glasses just this once wasn’t going to hurt much.

Before long the yawning started, Hardison first who stated he really hadn’t slept much the night before thanks to a World of Warcraft marathon. He said he ought to go a little before midnight and Sophie asked if she could get a ride with him. That left Nate in his armchair, clasping what the grifter said on her way out ought to be his last glass of scotch tonight, and Eliot and Parker sharing the couch, her feet in his lap and her head on the far cushions as she started to fall asleep.

“I was thinking about making a move too... after I do the dishes,” said the hitter, peering over his shoulder at the small mountain of plates and pans sitting in the sink.

His eyes moved back to Parker then as she dozed beside him, already wondering if he was going to take her home or back to his place, what a shame it would be to wake her. As if he read his friends mind, Nate spoke up with an offer.

“Y’know you can stay here tonight,” he told him kindly, finishing up his drink and moving to stand. "The spare room is yours if you want it, and y’know the dishes can wait 'til morning,” he advised, since it was so late and all.

Nate walked away to the kitchen then to dump his glass and muttered something about turning in himself as he headed up the stairs. The truth of it was, he didn’t really know how to handle this situation. As he told Sophie, he was already worrying about so many things where Parker’s pregnancy was concerned, and he couldn’t think that telling Eliot about them, a guy who was probably more freaked out by all this than he was, was going to help matters any.

“Hey, Parker,” said Eliot gently, as he reached across to brush her hair off her face. "C’mon, darlin’,” he told her. "Time to get you to bed.”

“Comfy,” she groaned, turning her body further into the cushions, not wanting the bother of waking up and moving.

With a sigh, Eliot moved her feet out of his lap and got up, realising there was no way Parker was going to move herself. If she slept on the couch she risked falling off it in the night and hurting herself or the baby. Even if that didn’t happen, he doubted she was going to be comfortable all night on a couch and it made no sense to stay there when a bed was on offer.

“Babe, you’re going to bed whether you like it or not,” he told her, pushing his hair out of his face as he leaned over her and figured out the best way to pick her up into his arms.

She didn’t fight or argue, just went a little stiff for a second when she felt hands on her body.

“It’s okay, Parker, it’s just me,” he reminded her as he hoisted her up, one arm around her back and the other behind her knees.

She was effortless to carry once he had a grip on her, feather light in the arms of a man that was built to manage much more. Still, Eliot knew he had never carried a cargo that mattered as much as this. Maybe Parker wasn’t his wife or his girlfriend like she ought to be since she was having his child, but she did mean a lot to him, and not just because of the baby they’d made between them that one crazy night.

Manoeuvring through the door to the spare bedroom, Eliot carefully laid Parker down on the bed, shifting her body so he could pull the covers up around her. He briefly considered helping her out of her clothes, but that would only disturb her sleep and bring up a few issues he could use not dealing with right now.

Parker sighed as she curled up comfortably, her head sinking into the pillow, and Eliot couldn’t help but smile as he watched her a moment. She was always beautiful, but perhaps even more so right now. Whether it was because she was pregnant, or just because she was silent and still a moment, he couldn’t possibly say. He also couldn’t explain why he felt the need to reach out and touch her in that moment, his hand cupping her cheek as he leant over to plant a kiss on her forehead.

What surprised Eliot more than his want to be that way with Parker, was when he moved away and was stopped from leaving by a hand gripping his sleeve. Glancing down he realised Parker’s eyes were now open as her fingers kept up a vice grip on his shirt.

“Do you have to go?” she asked, all wide eyed innocence that was impossible to ignore.

“You need to sleep, Parker,” he advised her, not sure exactly what she was asking him to stay for yet and a little wary of actually asking. "I was gonna take the couch.”

She looked so sad at the sound of his words, though Eliot wasn’t sure he understood why. When her fingers finally let go of his sleeve, he wondered whether she was relenting but apparently not as she scooted over to the far side of the double bed.

“There’s room here,” she shrugged, as if her suggestion was completely appropriate.

As things stood, it wasn’t as if it was such a crazy idea. As far as Eliot could tell, Parker did intend to only sleep tonight, and yet she wanted him with her. Whether he was supposed to be company, comfort, or something else entirely wasn’t clear, but he didn’t exactly mind so much staying here anyway - the couch hardly appealed.

Kicking off his boots, Eliot moved to sit on the bed, his back against the headboard. Truth be told, he wasn’t hugely tired himself. He didn’t quite stick to those ninety minutes that he’d told the team before, but he was used to minimal amounts of sleep and rarely bothered to spend the whole night in slumber.

Parker shifted in the bed, making Eliot even more glad he’d left her fully clothed as she pushed her body up close to his, leaving nowhere for his arm to go but around her. For a person who hated or even feared human contact the vast majority of the time, it was a little strange that Parker wanted to be so close right now, but Eliot didn’t question it. Honestly, it felt kind of nice being close with somebody like this, with Parker particularly. Despite his plans to stay awake, he was soon as lost to sleep as she was, he was just that comfortable here with her in his arms.

* * *

Eliot was surprised when he woke up to realise quite how long he had been sleeping. He tried to move his arm to rub his eyes but found it wouldn’t move at all, and it was then he remembered where he was and why. He was sitting more than lying on the spare bed at Nate’s place, his left arm dead thanks to Parker sleeping on it for what had to be hours. Not that he minded much, Eliot realised, as he looked down at her with a smile that came easy just from the sight of her sleeping.

Parker had always been beautiful, that might’ve been clearer from the beginning if Eliot hadn’t put her in a box in his head as out of bounds. First off, she was maybe the craziest person he ever met in the whole of his life, and that was really saying something. Second, she was on his team, and anything happening between them, be it a one night stand to a full on relationship would only screw up the dynamic of the group. Of course, that last point had slipped his mind a few weeks ago, somewhere between the end of a job and her straddling him on the couch at his place.

Things had gotten so crazy, which he should’ve expected if he was going to get mixed up with Parker, Eliot realised. Still, her getting pregnant, that was one thing he had never even once considered until that day she showed up at his apartment and shared the news.

In this moment, everything was shockingly calm and simple. All Eliot knew was the warmth of Parker’s body against his, the beauty of her face, how angelic she looked for a woman who was capable of such wacky behaviour. It would be just the easiest thing in the world to lean in close and put his lips to hers, the most innocent of moves, something Eliot found ironic given the kind of people they were and the situation they were in right now.

It didn’t change the fact that he did want to kiss her, in spite of the fact Parker had a tendency to react badly to any kind of contact. That being said, it had occurred to Eliot more than once, and none so much as now, that he seemed to be the exception to the little thief’s usual ‘no touching’ rule. Sure, she hugged Sophie, Nate, and Hardison, but very rarely and only when she felt like it. She was not happy if they made a move to touch her in such a way when uninvited, but with him, it was different. She didn’t seem to mind so much getting close to him, hell, she trusted him enough to spend the night in his arms, and a few weeks ago they had been as close as two people could possible get. To be fair, Parker was kind of the exception to his rule as well, after all, he had never allowed himself to get quite this comfortably close to anybody.

Eliot learnt a long time ago that his instincts served him well, and he knew Parker worked to the same idea. To hell with whatever else happened here, he leaned in and softly kissed her lips, not sure whether to expect her to wake or sleep on, to smile or slug him in the nose for his trouble. 

The result was that she did seem to stir at the feel of his kiss, like some kind of sleeping beauty, though her eyes didn’t open yet. It was clear she knew Eliot was there and what he was doing, because suddenly she was kissing him back, perhaps a little too much.

“Parker,” he said as he pulled back, stopping this before it all went way too far.

Her eyes snapped open, whether from the loss of contact or his saying her name, Eliot wasn’t sure, but they were certainly wide open now and staring at him with an expression he couldn’t identify at first. Perhaps confusion that she had woken up kissing him, or maybe panic that she had lost proper control for a few seconds. Maybe it was even disappointment that he had stopped this before anything real actually happened. Eliot didn’t let his mind linger too long on that last one, not when he was still this close to her and the urge to re-initiate their kiss still remained. 

“I should go make breakfast,” he said then, gone from the bed in one fluid movement and out the door before Parker could even sit up properly.

She was confused to say the least, not that the thief wasn’t used to being baffled by other people and the way they behaved, but the last person she expected to confuse her these days was Eliot. He did a wonderful job of being there when she needed him, always, but most especially lately since they found out she was pregnant.

To wake up with his lips on hers had felt good, so good she really didn’t want it to end. It set off sparks inside her, bringing to mind the one night they had spent together that had resulted in her pregnancy in the first place. Eliot had taken her places she’d never been before or since, though she had never told him that. She always figured he’d be really good at sex, after all, he’d dated so many women he had to have had plenty of practice. Besides which, he was totally built for the task.

When something felt so good, it made sense to Parker to do it again. Of course, before it had seemed awkward and wrong somehow to initiate further intimacy after that one night. She and Eliot had to work together on the team and it wasn’t as if she wanted a relationship or anything, at least she didn’t think so. It never occurred to her that Eliot would want anything else either, not even that he would want to be close to her again, until this morning when he kissed her, and yet just when things got serious he’d bolted on her. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t be together like that, there was no risk because she was already pregnant!

Outside the bedroom door, Eliot was feeling almost as baffled as Parker. He was such an idiot, he wasn’t even really sure why he’d kissed her in the first place, only that he had an overwhelming urge to do so. She was beautiful, of course she was, and he cared about her. She was just there and looking so perfect, she was having his child, and somehow it just made sense to make that move. Now he really wished he hadn’t because it was only going to complicate matters. He had to separate him and Parker from their having a baby together. It wasn’t as if they were married or even dating or anything. Of course he cared about her, but the last thing either of them needed was to make this messy situation any messier than it needed to be.

Hearing her move in the bedroom, Eliot hurried to the kitchen where he had been headed and considered the dishes that needed washing, then moved on to hunting out the things he needed to make breakfast. He had the coffee pot on and a pan heating up to make eggs before he realised he was no longer alone.

“Everything okay?” asked Nate as he descended the spiral stairs and caught Eliot muttering to himself, too quietly to be heard at this distance.

“Yeah,” the hitter answered on automatic before glancing up to meet the mastermind’s disbelieving gaze. "No,” he changed his answer. "I don’t know, man.” He shook his head, finding his hair annoying suddenly when he was trying to cook and moving to tie it back in a ponytail. "‘Okay’ might be pushing it,” he admitted as Nate came and took a seat on the stool by the counter. "Weird and messy? Hell, we got that in spades,” he said as he turned around to find mugs for the coffee.

Being busy stopped him thinking too much on things and cooking kept him calm when he thought he was going to lose it. These were two important things that Nate had learnt about Eliot Spencer after so many years of working together and becoming friends. Right now, he didn’t know exactly what had or hadn’t happened between Eliot and Parker last night, but then that was really none of his business. What mattered was trying to keep these two on track, whether apart or together, that was Nate’s priority.

“Y’know, Eliot,” he cleared his throat. "I, er, I can’t say that I know exactly what you’re going through,” he said, getting the hitter’s attention as he turned back to face him. "After all, every situation is different, and you and Parker... well, this was far from planned,” he said, choosing his words carefully, not least because Eliot had a knife in his hand at this point, "but I have been an expectant father, so if you ever need to talk, well, I’m here,” he offered with a crooked smile.

It wasn’t often that Eliot showed emotion, and very rare when he felt the need to be grateful for anything. Right now, he really couldn’t say how much Nate’s words meant to him at a time like this. Though their ages defied the logic of it, he was a kind of father figure at times, whether he meant to be or not. Sometimes it bugged Eliot to be treated almost like a kid, but times like this, it was good to know Daddy was there, watching out for him.

“Thanks, Nate,” he said genuinely. "That means a lot, seriously.”

The mastermind just nodded his understanding, getting down off his stool to take his mug over to the now ready coffee pot and fill it up. Eliot turned his attention back to breakfast and tried to figure out what he intended to cook, just as Parker appeared from the bedroom yawning. Her presence threw him all off his game again, as he wondered what she might say about their kissing a few minutes before. He could use not having such a conversation in front of Nate, but he ought to have known there was no reason to worry. Parker acted like it had never happened, or maybe like she had forgotten the moment already. Whether that made things better or worse in the long term, Eliot couldn’t quite decide right now.

“Good morning, Parker,” Nate greeted her as she pulled herself up onto his abandoned stool and stretched her body out like a cat might.

“Hmm, what food group are pancakes in?” she asked Eliot as she collapsed back down onto the edge of the counter, resting her elbows there and her chin on her hands.

“I think we can cover a couple if I throw enough fruit on ‘em,” said Eliot as he turned to look for the ingredients.

“Fruit is okay.” She shrugged, clearly not overly thrilled at the prospect but willing to bend a little on these things if she must.

Eliot couldn’t help but smile as he buzzed around the kitchen doing the other thing that he did best. Yeah, sometimes this whole situation was going to be weird and messy just like he said to Nate, but in moments like this it all seemed so easy. He could learn to love being so comfortable and content, if only it was this simple all the time.


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn’t long before Nate had the next client lined up, though he and Sophie had serious talks about it for the better part of a night before they dared tell the rest of the team anything. They had tried to set some ground rules over what Parker would and would not be able or allowed to do during her pregnancy, but she wasn’t a huge fan of being told what to do at the best of times and in her hormonal state, Nate was almost afraid of trying to deal with her when it came to a job like this.

Sophie offered to take point, but that was likely to make everyone weird and suspicious, and upset any balance that might still exist between the five of them. No, Nate had to do this himself, he just wanted to know he had a little support from the grifter, that if a fight broke out about the specifics of a con or the slightly altered job roles, she was going to be on his side. With her agreement in place, and almost all possible contingency plans arranged before they began, Nate called Hardison, who got a hold of Eliot, who was supposed to bring Parker.

The first problem they encountered was that when the team assembled at Nate’s place that evening, only four people were present.

“Eliot, is Parker okay?” the mastermind asked worriedly as he perched on a stool in front of the vid screen.

“Last I heard from her, yeah,” the hitter agreed. "I called her about the job, left a bunch of messages...” he explained, as he pulled out his phone and checked the screen again to see if he had a text or voicemail reply from the thief - nothing.

“Well, maybe she’s just running late?” suggested Sophie, though already her heart was starting to thump in her chest at the thought of something awful happening to her friend, her pregnant and now much more vulnerable friend.

“Maybe,” said Eliot though he seemed unconvinced as he dialled Parker’s number again and stood up to get a better signal as he made his call.

Hardison watched the hitter pace behind her and listened as he left one more message, demanding Parker call him just the second she got it. He was getting mad because he was worried about her, the hacker knew. He was equally as concerned, and immediately swung into action.

“I can try her other numbers, the fake cells she has, just in case,” he offered, fingers flying across the keyboard in front of him and patching into all the necessary signals and feeds.

“Sophie, maybe you could try comms?” Nate suggested and immediately the grifter went for her earbud, wandering away from the sounds of Hardison typing and then Eliot talking.

“This ain’t good, man.” He shook his head as he continued to prowl around like a caged animal. "I mean, we can’t even go to her apartment to check she’s okay, because she won’t tell anyone where she damn well lives!” he yelled, perhaps too loudly, especially since everyone was within just a few feet of him, not a mile away.

“No answer on comms,” said Sophie sadly as she returned to the couch.

“Or on any of her cells,” added Hardison, looking decidedly grim.

“Okay, er... what about tracking?” tried Nate, thinking fast, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as he attempted to fix this before Eliot exploded again. "Um, didn’t she have shoes with a tracker at some point?”

“Uh-huh, and she still got ‘em, far as I know,” the hacker agreed. "We just gotta hope she’s wearing them, or at least she’s in the same place they’re at...” he said as he once again ran some kind of scan through his computer. "And they are right... here,” he said, showing the display of his computer to the others.

“Parker has an apartment on Michigan Avenue?” asked Sophie, looking somewhat impressed, eyebrows rising at the realisation.

“That or somebody living there stole her shoes.” Hardison shrugged, since it was the only explanation he had right now.

“Eliot!” Nate called across the room then to the hitter who was already on his way out.

“I’m going, Nate, whether you like it or not!” he yelled back over his shoulder, slamming the door behind him as he left.

The three left behind shared worried looks for more than one reason. They were concerned for Parker since she hadn’t shown up here, and then for Eliot if he was going drive when he was in such a foul mood. They were used to him being angry, of course they were, he was like that the vast majority of the time, but this was different. It was as if he really cared deeply for Parker, else why would he be so concerned for her, and so mad that she wasn’t here at the meeting where she ought to be?

“I shoulda gone with him,” sighed Hardison as he rechecked the screen. "He’s got like twenty-five floors in the building.”

“You can’t narrow it down to one apartment, text him the address?” asked Sophie as she moved to sit on the arm of his chair, leaning over to peer at the display that was now far more complex than just the map that showed on the vid screen.

“Er, yeah, I can probably do that,” the hacker agreed, finding it a little odd he hadn’t thought of that himself, but then he was worrying about Parker so very much right now.

He didn’t believe Eliot would ever hurt her, not physically at all, and never even emotionally on purpose. Sure, he said some mean things sometimes, but they weren’t meant to wound, not really. It was becoming more and more clear that what existed between Eliot and Parker was beyond just a one night stand and an accidental pregnancy anyway. Hardison wasn’t sure if he was glad or more pained by the revelation, but he tried not to think about it too much as a rule.

“Hey, here we go,” he said suddenly as a result flashed up on the screen. "Apartment 235 is registered to Miss Rose Tyler, that’s one of Parker’s aliases.”

“That’s good.” Nate nodded over the glass of scotch in his hand that nobody had seen him pour. "So, Hardison, since I doubt Eliot took his earbud, you text him the address, tell him we want to know the second he finds Parker safe.”

“Sure thing, boss,” the hacker agreed, reaching in his pocket for his cell phone.

* * *

Eliot got the text from Hardison just as he pulled up his truck outside the building.

“Boy’s gotta be good for something,” he muttered as he checked the screen and read off the apartment number he needed.

Getting into the building was easy, and an elevator seemed to arrive as if it was there just for the hitter as he strolled in through the doors. The ride to the tenth floor felt as if it took forever, not least because Eliot was far from the most patient person in the world. Just as soon as it arrived, he was out the elevator, the doors barely having time to fully open before he was gone. Down the hall, he traced door after door, counting up numbers to 235 and then pounding on the door without a thought in his head but finding Parker and making sure she was okay.

There was no answer to his over-zealous knocking, nor to his yelling of Parker’s name over and over. After the first six attempts, Eliot started to get more and more worried and consequently more and more angry.

Just when he was considering if there was enough room for a run up to shoulder his way clean through the door, it opened of its own accord.

“Parker?” he checked, peering inside only to have her peek at him around the side of the door.

“What do you want?” she asked as she pushed her hair out of her face and sighed.

She didn’t look good, presumably because she felt awful, Eliot guessed. The way she was dressed suggested he’d got her out of bed, despite the fact it was mid-morning by now and he knew she was usually up with the lark most days. In a moment all the anger and frustration inside of the hitter melted into concern and worry for Parker.

“What happened?” he asked as he came into the apartment and she closed the door behind him, leaning heavily on the wall right after like she couldn’t hold herself up.

“Nothing happened,” she said snippily, moving to walk by him then and lurching somewhat to the side.

Eliot caught her easily, holding her with one arm and putting a hand to her face. She wasn’t really there, apparently either so tired or just feeling so crappy that she couldn’t be bothered to function. Still, the moment she realised she was quite literally leaning on somebody else, Parker snapped out of it some, making a deal out of righting herself without assistance and heading back towards what Eliot had to assume was her bedroom.

“I’m just tired, okay?” she told him as she went. "What’s the problem?”

Eliot started to get mad again then, which wasn’t unusual for him, but he had been making a special effort to keep his cool where Parker was concerned lately. She was pregnant, she was going to have mood swings and get all hormonal and stuff. If she bugged him, he still had to try and be nice, be understanding. He knew it already, though Sophie had hammered the point home more than once these past few days. Right now was different, because as far as he could tell Parker still didn’t understand why he was here, why he’d come pounding on her door and then asked what was wrong with such concern. It bugged him that she could be so oblivious to the fact he cared about what happened to her, and he knew it shouldn’t bother him, but it did.

“The problem?” he said, long after she asked the question. "The problem is you weren’t answering any calls and we didn’t know where you were,” he told her from the bedroom doorway. "The problem is that you don’t have one address we can always find you at, and you never let anybody know where you are or if you’re okay.”

“It never mattered before,” she sighed into her pillow. "The phones are switched off because I was trying to sleep and...” she stopped short of saying the next thought in her head as she sat up sharply and stared at him. "How did you know I had a place here?” she checked.

“Hardison,” was the only word Eliot felt the need to give as explanation, before continuing with the rant he wasn’t done with yet. "Damnit, Parker, don’t you get that I... we were worried about you?” he told her, perhaps too harshly, though the kindly sentiment was real enough.

It still baffled Parker, even after all this time, to think that people really genuinely cared. Her team, her family, they were worried something bad had happened to her because they couldn’t get a hold of her today. Now that she thought about it, she did think she’d seen a few messages on her main cell before she shut it off and let sleep claim her. Apparently there was a meeting or something she was missing, and it had got everyone, but most especially Eliot, really mad at her.

The silence between them remained, with neither knowing where they went from here. Parker was suddenly very aware of what a mess she looked and felt, and neither of them could miss the fact they were in her bedroom right now. Mixed up feelings and all were becoming the norm for the both of them lately. For Parker it was mostly because of her hormones on top of the life changing prospect of being a mother, a part of a family after so many years without anyone to care. For Eliot it was re-evaluating his entire life’s plan and realising he was about to have new responsibilities and different priorities too. The whole thing made the two of them so frustrated, to the point where Eliot just wanted a reason to beat the crap out of someone or something, and Parker didn’t know why but she just got the urge to cry far too often... including right now.

The sight of tears on her cheeks made the hitter feel sick. Women crying was one of his few weaknesses in life, and Parker crying, especially now, just made him feel like hell. This pregnancy thing was such a huge deal, there was no getting away from that, and when you were a person that had trouble just dealing with normal day to day stuff, which Parker did, it was all far too much to take alone.

“Hey, come on,” he said gently as he moved towards the bed, ever mindful of spooking her.

When she didn’t flinch, he sat down on the edge and reached out for her, a little surprised when she went willingly into his embrace, sobbing like a child.

“I hate this,” she mumbled against his shoulder. "I’m just so tired all the time, and then the stupidest things make me wanna cry,” she complained, as Eliot just held her close and rubbed her back soothingly.

“It’s okay, darlin’,” he promised her. "I know it sucks right now, but it’s normal. It’s all part of the process.”

Her head came up too suddenly from his shoulder at the sound of those words, the weirdest look on her face.

“How do you know?” she asked, apparently confused. "You’ve never been pregnant.”

Whether it was the odd look on her face or the suggestion of any guy, let alone him, carrying a child, Eliot wasn’t sure, but he had to try really hard not to laugh right then.

“I read it in a book,” he pointed out, something that was probably obvious to anyone else, but then Parker never really had been like any other person he ever knew. "You should probably be reading it more than me but...”

“You bought a pregnancy book?” she interrupted, still staring oddly at him. "To help me?”

Poor Parker seemed completely lost by the concept that somebody wanted to help her. It broke the hitter’s heart, that he usually claimed not to have, to realise just how badly she must have been treated before. She honestly couldn’t fathom how anybody could care so much about her, worry for her welfare, or want to do nice things to please her or help her out. Sure, it was a little strange to Eliot to first have a make-shift family in the form of a team of Robin Hood style thieves, and now the prospect of a real family since he was about to have a child with Parker. Still, he was dealing better than she was apparently.

“All I wanna do right now is help you,” he promised her, as solemnly as he ever promised anybody anything. "I wanna keep both you and this kid of ours safe, alright?” he told her, mindful of scaring her with such a commitment by making her feel smothered or trapped.

It took a moment, but then the odd frown on her face gave way to a watery smile that Eliot was grateful to see.

“I guess.” She shrugged, looking down a moment and then to his sopping wet shoulder as she poked him. "Sorry for messing up your shirt,” she apologised, though it seemed the hitter had only just now noticed what she’d done.

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged it off like no big deal. "I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he told her without really meeting her eyes. "It’s not your fault you feel this way.”

Parker nodded a kind of agreement to what he said, summoning a little courage and leaning into his embrace again.

“I feel better now,” she said in a strangely soft tone Eliot was sure he never heard her use before.

It was nice though, to know she needed him, that she wanted him around and that she could find such comfort and peace in his arms. That didn’t mean it wasn’t entirely strange to realise he was the one lone person that Parker both trusted and liked enough to be comfortable with like this. The whole course of her life she had dealt with people who pretended to care, who used and abused her. Eliot was here to make sure that didn’t happen anymore.

The longer this went on, the more he came to realise that maybe some of these feelings he was getting for Parker hadn’t just started when she announced she was pregnant with his child, or even that one night when they slept together and made this baby she was carrying.

Maybe this was what Eliot wanted from the first day he met Parker, or maybe not quite then, after all she did come off as nothing but twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag in the beginning! Now he knew her better, now he had come to really care about her. As scary as it might be to realise he was allowing himself to fall, Eliot could not deny it, at least inside his own head. He was in very great danger of being in love here, and he only hoped it wasn’t his downfall.


	8. Chapter 8

It had to have been a good ten minutes or more that Eliot and Parker had been sat here like this, her wrapped up in his arms, her tears now long over. It was so comfortable somehow for the both of them, a strange thing for two such people to realise. Neither were much for physical contact of this kind as a general rule, and yet with each other, there had always been an exception made. That had been further proven by the fact they had spent the night together a few months ago and made the child she now carried.

Parker wasn’t sure how she came to want to be held and cared about like this, after so long of being alone and used to it. She figured she could blame her hormones and all the weird pregnant lady feelings she was getting lately. Still, that didn’t explain why Eliot was so keen to be here for her. He cared for their baby, she guessed that had to be it, and didn’t so much bother about her at all. Strangely, that thought caused a weird kind of a pain inside her, and Parker didn’t want to think about that, not at all.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, and she half wondered if the hitter had instantly become a mind reader. "I should probably call Nate’s, tell the guys you’re not coming over.”

It had taken all this time for Eliot to properly realise that he was supposed to tell the team just the moment he found Parker. They would all be worried, Sophie most especially because that was just the way she was. With her nervous habits she was probably half way through devouring Nate’s entire kitchen full of food by now!

“Why am I not going?” asked Parker as Eliot’s arms were suddenly gone from around her body and he was pacing her bedroom floor as he looked for Nate’s number.

She didn’t get an answer out of him and was forced to just sit watching from the edge of her bed as he made his call, assuring Nate (and Hardison and Sophie by proxy) that he had found Parker at the expected address and she was fine, just missed all their calls and such because she was asleep. He finished by saying he’d be back soon but that he would not be bringing their pregnant thief with him. The moment he hung up, Parker re-posed her question from before.

“Why am I not going?” she said with a look that showed she was decidedly unimpressed, whether by the idea of not going or maybe just the fact someone else had made that decision for her.

“Parker, if you feel this tired and everything, I didn’t think you’d wanna be pulling a job...” Eliot began to explain, pinching the bridge of his nose like he felt a headache coming on, maybe because he knew already that getting into this with her was going to cause one.

“You didn’t ask me,” she pointed out. "You just made the choice for me. That’s not fair,” she argued, practically stamping her foot like a teenager might.

“Parker,” he tried to stay calm as he answered her, "I’m just trying to help here, okay?” he reminded her. "You know there are limits on what you can do on cons right now and I was trying to do the right thing.”

“Well, maybe you did the wrong thing,” she countered, folding her arms across her chest much like he often did when he got mad. "Just because I’m pregnant, I’m not helpless, Eliot. I can decide where I wanna go and what I wanna do!”

“No, you can’t!” he yelled back at her, immediately regretting it.

First off, he knew it was wrong to tell anyone they couldn’t make their own choices in life, hell, he certainly wouldn’t want that kind of thing said to him. Parker was as independent as anyone he knew most of the time, and trying to tell her she didn’t know what was best for her own life was kind of insane as well as borderline-suicidal.

Second, yelling at her wasn’t helping. Eliot had been trying his best to stay calm but his threshold of patience was shockingly low and his tendency to lose it was legendary. Besides, Parker could push his buttons like nobody else he knew. Of course, that didn’t mean he should be shouting at her and telling her what to do. He was supposed to be helping her, trying to take care of her and their child, that’s what he said he was going to do. Right now, he wasn’t doing it so well!

“I don’t want you here right now,” she said coldly, looking at the floor.

It was strange because just a few seconds ago Parker had been wondering at how comfortable and at home she felt in Eliot’s embrace. She could have just fallen asleep there with his arms around her and his fingers stroking her hair. Now she wanted him gone, for a hundred different reasons, the main one being she was not willing to let him see that he made her want to cry all over again.

“Parker,” Eliot began, hating that he screwed this up, more mad at himself right now than he’d ever gotten at her. "I’m really trying here.”

“Well, you’re not trying hard enough,” she told him, meeting his eyes with anger and pain both shining in her own. "You can’t just take over my life, Eliot. Nobody is going to do that to me, least of all you!” she yelled as she got to her feet and right in his face.

“What do you mean ‘least of all me’?” he wanted to know, feeling hurt by the idea that out of everyone she was singling him out as a person not to be trusted with any major decision in her life right now.

“I mean...” she faltered some then, knowing the words she had thrown at him in anger had no real meaning or purpose, she was just so mad at him in this moment. "It doesn’t matter what I mean,” she told him, throwing her arms in the air. "I told you to get out already,” she said, shoving him hard with both hands against his chest. "You’re crowding me, and I don’t like it!”

Eliot stumbled a bit, not because she was actually tough enough to knock him over, not at all, but because her verbal outburst turning physical had somewhat surprised him. It shouldn’t have perhaps, since Parker did have a tendency to lash out in various ways when she got scared or angry. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel this tightly wound on top of everything else. It wasn’t good for her or the baby, that was the whole point, but then Eliot wasn’t exactly thinking very clearly as he got just as angry as it seemed Parker felt.

“Oh, I’m crowding you?” he practically exploded as she backed him out of the bedroom and towards the front door. "I came here because I was worried about you, because I actually thought you might be in trouble and need help,” he told her too loudly, pointing an angry finger in her face. "But hey, I’m just crowding you so I’ll go. Pardon me for caring!” he yelled as he let himself out of the front door and slammed it hard behind him.

Parker physically winced at the loud clang of the door against the frame, feeling as if the whole apartment shook with the force. Out of pure frustration she picked up the nearest thing to hand and threw it hard in the hitter’s wake. The lamp made a further almighty thud as it struck the door and then landed on the carpet in more than one piece.

She hated this. Hated that she just broke a perfectly good lamp for no good reason. Hated that Eliot would talk to her like that and make her so mad. Hated that there were tears streaming down her cheeks for the third time today. So far being pregnant kinda sucked and getting close to Eliot was causing way more problems than she could handle.

For a while things had seemed okay. Sure, finding out she was having a baby was pretty scary, but the team had been supportive, and after the initial shock Eliot had been really sweet and helpful. He worried about her as well as the baby, that’s what he said, and the more Parker thought on it the more she realised that maybe it wasn’t just because she was pregnant that he cared. He liked her, she knew that, you didn’t have sex with people you didn’t like, at least she never had. He cared enough to double-check her harnesses when she rappelled, to ask if she was okay when she took a fall, even to cook the things he knew she liked, leaving out anything he would normally put in there just because she said she hated it. All these little things hadn’t really occurred to her until right now and the realisation made her gasp with shock.

Eliot cared about her. He really, actually cared, and when she let her mind process what had happened here today, she realised very quickly she had acted a little irrationally. Of course, Parker was often irrational and it never bothered her before, which made her feel all the more strange about the fact it did right now.

Moving back towards the door, she wondered if Eliot was still there. She hadn’t heard him go down the stairs or the elevator’s usual ‘ding’, but then she had been kind of distracted by her lamp throwing and being shocked by a string of odd thoughts and memories rushing through her mind.

She had no idea that Eliot actually was right there on the other side of the door, wondering on some similar topics to her. A lot of things made the hitter mad, most people too, but nobody had such a profound effect as Parker. Sometimes she made him so angry he could scream and wondered how he had kept his self-control so far and never broken his golden rule about not hitting women without proper physical provocation! Of course, there were other times when she made him laugh or genuinely smile, which was all the more strange because very few people could achieve that. Half the time he wasn’t even sure she meant to do it, which made it all the more strange.

Then there were the other feelings Parker caused in Eliot, bringing out that caring side he had once thought long dead. He liked the idea of looking after her and their baby, however freakish it was that they were even going to be parents of the same child. He had come over here trying to be the good guy for a change and ended up just reverting to type, making things worse by losing his cool. Parker just pushed his buttons so easily, and they were all the angry ones... when they weren’t the other ones that had resulted in a baby being made, but the less said about that the better right now.

Just as Eliot was genuinely considering knocking on the door and apologising to Parker, she went and opened it anyway. The sight of further tear tracks on her face made him want to hit something all over again, mostly himself if he were honest.

“You’re still here,” she said pointlessly when nothing else came to mind,

“Yeah.” He nodded, letting out a breath as he pushed his hair out of his face. "I, er... I shouldn’t’a yelled at you,” he told her. "I’m sorry,” he muttered, feeling dumb because he really never did apologise if he could help it, and besides he really never ought to have given himself a reason for needing to in the first place. 

“I’m sorry too.” Parker sniffed, looking at a patch of carpet not far from the same one he was staring at. "I’m not exactly used to people caring and stuff,” she shrugged awkwardly.

Eliot nodded his understanding. He always knew she had issues when dealing with people, he knew maybe better than anybody else in the team because he had similar problems. The only difference between them that way really was his affinity with the opposite sex verses her usual fear of getting close. That made it even more strange that the two of them had slept together that one night, but right now that wasn’t what was important.

“You gotta understand,” he tried to tell her, meeting her eyes then. "I can’t just not care about this... about you.”

“I know, I get it.” She found a small smile then. "Kinda like it,” she admitted, "but you gotta give me some space to breathe, y’know?” she told him, stepping back to let him into the apartment again, almost tripping over the lamp shade there.

Eliot caught her arm, afraid she was going to fall on her ass. He looked down at the wanton destruction on the carpet and frowned some. He gave Parker an inquisitive look but she only shrugged and turned away without concern, leading Eliot to do the same eventually.

“So, we going to Nate’s now?” she asked, already pulling on her jacket.

Eliot opened his mouth to answer, perhaps to argue, but immediately changed his mind. Parker wanted space and to make her own decisions. He couldn’t deny her that, it wouldn’t be fair, and the last thing he wanted was another fight, or worse, further tears from the little thief.

“Sure,” he nodded. "Truck’s out front.”

“Cool.” She smiled, as she breezed by him, almost as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened here.

* * *

“Hey,” said Parker as she strolled into Nate’s place. "What’s up?” she checked, as three pairs of eyes turned on with mixed expressions of anger, relief, and surprise.

“We were so worried about you, sweetie,” Sophie explained, apparently about to make a big deal until she, along with Nate and Hardison, spotted Eliot over the blonde’s shoulder.

He made a cutting motion that advised them not to go on too much about the fuss today, and given the situation, they all followed the instruction without argument.

“But you’re here now and you’re fine,” said Nate swiftly with a forced smile as Parker took a seat and Eliot came to join them. "So, let’s talk about our new client,” he said, asking Hardison to ‘run it’.

Sophie was only half listening as she looked to her left, first at Parker who was paying rapt attention to the vid screen, and then at the hitter beyond. He caught her staring and gave her a quizzical look, but she only smiled and turned away again. These two could pretend the only thing that connected them was a baby, that the only reason they slept together that one night was for a release and they were the first person each other saw. They could pretend if they wanted to and protest until they were blue in the face with talk of never being anything but friends, but Sophie knew better.

A grifter knew how to play the game but also how to interpret those that others played. She saw signs that others might not, and after all these years even Eliot and Parker were pretty easily read by their own Ms Devereaux. By the time this baby came, she had no doubt that Mommy and Daddy would be much more a couple than even they could anticipate. Of course, right now, she ought to be concentrating on the con at hand, same as everybody else. After all, they were all going to have to shift roles a little in this one, given Parker’s condition, and it was already clear that the blonde was not thrilled about it!


	9. Chapter 9

She shouldn’t have argued, Parker knew it now more than ever and she hated that it hadn’t occurred to her sooner. It was obvious that given her pregnancy there was a whole bunch of stuff she wasn’t going to be able to do for a while. No rappelling, no crawling through air-ducts, no getting into a position where she might need to fight her way out. It meant she had limited use on a con, and yet being left out didn’t suit her at all.

This particular mission was pretty simple; break into the office, steal the evidence, and get back out, dropping off the incriminating paperwork at the police station on the way home. This kind of thing was a walk in the park for a team like theirs, and Nate was confident in it all working out easily. Security at the office block was limited, and staff even more scarce at night. Hardison jammed the security system, staying in the van with Nate who kept watch over everything else. Sophie kept busy those who might interfere, while Eliot and Parker snuck up to the tenth floor together to break into the correct office and grab what they needed.

It ought to have worked out easily enough and even the hitter had admitted Parker was almost as safe carrying out her part as she would be doing anything any normal person did each day. There was no safe to crack and he could just as simply have broken the locks off the doors if she wasn’t able to help him by picking them, but she had begged and pleaded to be allowed to help by carrying out such a simple task, and since Eliot would be right beside her the whole time, the gang had all agreed with her request. Big mistake, apparently.

What the team had not been prepared for was the extra security, the unknown quantity that was certain ‘business associates’ of the original mark. Seemed they knew the Leverage crew were coming and had no problem with taking out all five if they needed to, in order to stop their partners papers being taken and delivered to the cops.

By the time Nate and Hardison spotted the bruisers in monkey suits coming gunning for their team-mates, it was too late to do much about it. The only escape now not guarded was the window and without her rappelling gear, Parker was a sitting duck. She offered to help Eliot fight their way out but he wouldn’t hear a word of it, having to go on to beat out five guys before they got to an elevator and made their escape, with a little help from Hardison who made sure the remaining goons were forced to take the stairs back down.

Eliot had fallen into the van last, behind Parker and Sophie, both of whom he was determined to see safe before he was. Blood ran from a cut on his face, scratches on his knuckles, and a gash to his side that was easily visibly through the slice in his T-shirt. There were going to be bruises galore he was certain of it, and he’d bust at least two ribs if the screaming pain each time he breathed was anything to go by.

“So much for a simple job,” Sophie had said as she looked him over. "How did we not know this was going to happen?” she asked Nate who was riding shot-gun by Hardison.

“I don’t know,” he had admitted with a shake of his head, though he knew such an answer wasn’t good enough. "We missed something... I don’t know how, I just...”

As the team talked over what had happened, Parker couldn’t say a word. Her eyes were fixed on the poor state of Eliot and she had begun to blame herself, over and over inside her mind, for what had happened tonight. If only she hadn’t insisted on going along, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. She had convinced herself quite easily that it was the fussing over her condition and all that kept anyone in the team from being prepared for this twist in their plans.

This was why, just a few hours after the theft-gone-wrong, she was inside the apartment block where Eliot lived, contemplating the stairs she had never yet used to reach his home. The window was her usual point of entry, up to the roof and then down on a line, but that was out of the question right now. It felt foreign to climb the three flights of steps up to the front door and knock like a so-called normal person, and she just couldn’t bring herself to do the last part. It had occurred to her in that moment that knocking would just make Eliot get up and come to the door to let her in, hurting him even more than he had already been hurt.

A pin from her hair fitted easily into the lock as she worked the gears and she had popped the door open in no time at all. She wondered why he didn’t have better security, more expensive and complicated locks, a dead-bolt maybe, but then Eliot Spencer was his own built-in security system, she told herself, he never needed anything else.

Of course, Parker doubted her favourite hitter was feeling much like a fight right now. He was injured enough in the back of the van a few hours before. By now, the bruising that had started would’ve come out full force, and away from the team Eliot would allow himself to show the force of the pain she was sure he always hid in front of prying eyes.

Wandering through the living room in silent tip-toe steps, Parker was a little surprised to find nobody there and the lights out all around her. She listened a moment outside the bathroom door before realising Eliot wasn’t there either. The only light was coming from under a closed door down the hall, the room she recalled all too well, now she thought on it.

Moving quietly over to the bedroom, she pushed the door open and peered inside. Eliot reacted immediately, though maybe not as fast as he usually would. Parker didn’t ask what he was reaching for from the night-stand, but she had to assume it was a weapon. It suddenly occurred to her, a little too late perhaps, that sneaking up on an injured hitter maybe wasn’t the smartest idea she ever had in her life.

“Sorry,” she apologised without an explanation as to what for, just assuming Eliot would get it.

With a look of confusion in his eyes (which was more obvious in his left than his right thanks to some swelling), the hitter pulled himself up a little on the bed and waited for a reason that the thief never gave.

“Parker? What the hell...?” he prompted her after a while. "How’d you get in here?”

It was a dumb question and he ought to have known it. The girl could break in or out of just about anywhere, in calculated times that were never more than a few seconds.

“I picked your lock,” she shrugged without a care on that subject as she came over and sat down on the other side of his double bed. "How’re you feeling?” she asked, wincing for him as she pulled her legs up and crossed them lotus style.

“Sore,” Eliot admitted, moving a little to face her betterm "but that’s normal when five guys try to kill you.” He smirked, resting a hand carefully on his ribs that didn’t appreciate being jostled around right now.

They could have a whole big conversion that would become a fight over why Parker shouldn’t come breaking into his home and barging into his room without warning. He could yell and she would probably cry, then he’d hate himself for ever starting it. Besides, either the knocks to the head or the pain killers, possibly both, were making him feel all kinds of out of it. It was easier just to let her be now she was here, especially if she was trying to be thoughtful and nice. Those weren’t obvious Parker traits and they took effort, so Eliot did his best to appreciate her trying, even as the world got a little fuzzy around him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, so softly he almost missed it.

“Why?” he checked, feeling like he turned over two pages at once. "You didn’t ask them to beat on me, Parker,” he told her easily, and yet she still looked so sad, almost guilty.

She nodded that he was right but never said another word. She had a horrible feeling that if she opened her mouth again she would just make herself cry and Parker was getting really bored with that already. It was a little strange being here, in the room where this whole thing had started. This was the very bed she and Eliot had sex in a couple of months ago, making the baby she was carrying. From there, he had started to act like he really cared, not just about this kid they’d made, but Parker herself too. It made the thief wonder about her own feelings, made her think maybe there must be more to this odd relationship she and Eliot had then she ever considered before.

Right now, it was very clear to her that he was hurting and she had an overwhelming need to ease that pain. Whether he blamed her for his injuries or not really wasn’t the point for Parker. She didn’t like it when any of her team suffered, but it was Eliot that bore the brunt of so many attacks, and the same guy that she seemed to care so much about lately.

“You shouldn’t sleep in that,” she advised, gesturing to the bloody and ripped T-shirt Eliot still wore.

Given that he was sat on the bed in his clothes and not in it suggested his intention to go to bed and sleep through some of the healing process hadn’t really got off the ground. Parker suspected that undressing was probably giving him issues with his injuries. She’d had one or two problems on that score herself over the years, and knew Eliot must have too, but she was here now so he didn’t have to worry about that.

Neither of them spoke as she carefully manoeuvred the both of them and helped him out of his T-shirt, mindful of his ribs, his arm, and his face, all of which were marked up in purple blotches and red gashes that made her wince just from the sight. She assisted in binding the ribs she knew were most painful to him, and then disappeared from the room a moment, returning quickly with ice packs that she helped arrange on swellings that needed the help.

Eliot let her help only because it was her. Usually if the team fussed him he lost his temper, since Sophie had a habit of mothering him and Nate of acting as if he were his Dad too on occasion. It was a the hitter’s job to be the tough one, to take the beatings, pick himself up, and carry on. No fuss made, no help needed. Of course, that was somewhat of a lie. There were times when he could use some help, when a little comfort would be a nice thing, but he never let them know that, not until tonight, not until Parker.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told her, though he let himself relax against the pillow she wedged between his back and the headboard as she wound up the rest of the bandage and dropped it back in the drawer of the night-stand.

“I want to,” she said, without looking at him. "I want to help you, like you’ve been helping me,” she said, checking the binding around his ribs was going to hold. "It’s what friends do, right?” she asked, a genuine question like she wasn’t quite sure she’d got it right.

It was just a little difficult for Eliot to concentrate on answering with her fingers brushing his skin, the warmth of her body so close to his own.

“Friends, yeah,” he agreed, his voice too soft in his own ears as he took a hold of her hand, stilling its movement at his ribs.

Parker was startled, that much was clear from the way her eyes shot up to meet his then. Still, she wasn’t stupid, she knew what was going on here. Her memory was sharp enough to recall that this was how things had started last time. Sure, they’d been sharing the couch in his living room that day, at least in the beginning. She had helped clean up some gashes on his back that were more difficult for him to reach. Her fingers moving gently across his skin, somebody who wanted to care, left over adrenaline within both of them after a successful con, it had all culminated in one night of pure passion that had resulted in Parker now being pregnant.

Since then, they hadn’t been together that way again. He had held her when she cried, even when she slept that one night at Nate’s place, but that was all. Well, almost, Eliot recalled, as his mind went to that very night, more specifically the next morning when he had woken Parker with a kiss and immediately realised what a fool he was when she had seemed to want to take things further. This time, it appeared she was going to make the first move and though it had already occurred to Eliot that this couldn’t end well, he just let it happen.

Leaning in close, Parker reached out to push his hair away from his face, revealing more of the dark-coloured bruise marring his cheek. Eliot’s eyes fell shut as she planted a gentle kiss there, then another by the cut on his forehead. He thought about telling her to stop, but just when he had plans to open his mouth and say it, her lips covered his in a third kiss that didn’t end half so fast as the others.

Parker wasn’t sure what she was doing here or why. As was her usual way, she was operating purely on instinct and everything in her was screaming for this, for the closeness, for gentle touches, and a warm embrace. These were things she usually went out of her way to avoid, making her wonder vaguely if all this was just a side-effect of being pregnant. She didn’t want to think about it much, forgot to think about much of anything when she felt Eliot’s fingers thread through her hair as he kissed her.

A familiar warm feeling flowed through Parker’s body, not just remembered from the night they slept together, but even from times before that. Arms around her to check her harness, a bright smile across the room when she made a joke, words of thanks for helping out in the kitchen. These things passed without Parker really paying attention to them for such a long time, now she found herself recalling them all so clearly and craving the feeling that came with each one.

“Can I stay here?” she asked as they parted at last.

“What?” Eliot looked and sounded startled by the request.

“Not forever,” she explained, in a whisper she didn’t think ought to be her voice. "Just for tonight.”

Eliot wasn’t sure what she meant by her request. Kissing Parker, on top of the beating he’d taken and painkillers he’d swallowed a while before, it was all making him feel fuzzy in the extreme. The idea of her staying here tonight wasn’t awful, but he was still awake and sharp enough to know it might well make things all the more complicated if she did.

“Parker, you said you wanted space,” he reminded her of words she had told him after their last fight, not two days before.

“I do,” she agreed, knowing she would not want to go back to him making decisions for her like he had then. "I just... Not so much right now, y’know?” she said, meeting his eyes again and hoping she was making some sense.

She was more than a little pleased to see him nod his agreement, and smiled into the next kiss he gave her. It felt so good, she kind of didn’t want it to end. Mindful of hurting any part of him that was injured, Parker moved her body in close as she dared to Eliot’s own, putting a little more passion into this kiss, hoping he wouldn’t stop making her feel this way any time soon. It was beyond disappointing when he all but pushed her away just a moment later.

“This can’t lead anywhere good,” he breathed shakily, his ribs not appreciating his not breathing for the sake of long intense kisses.

Perhaps Parker ought to have thought of that sooner, but her mind had already wandered otherwhere, a hazy mist of passion settling into her mind.

“But I’m already pregnant.” She shrugged, so apparently pure and naive in her words, despite the fact the direction her hands were travelling at this point was anything but innocent.

Eliot might’ve have laughed at the contradiction, but he didn’t have it in him right now.

“That’s not what I meant,” he told her, though any explanation he might’ve given never came as he gave in for as long as he could stand too, kissing her long and hard until he absolutely had to breathe.

Too long and too far, he winced terribly at the pain he’d caused himself, finally bringing Parker’s attention back to the reason she had come here in the first place. He was hurting because of her, though he said she wasn’t to blame. Whoever should be found guilty of the crime of letting Eliot suffer didn’t matter. He wasn’t at full strength, too many visible marks on his skin. Parker backed off so suddenly, it made Eliot worry more than even she had.

“Hey, I wasn’t...” he started, but the shake of her head stopped him finishing whatever it was he had in mind to say.

“It’s not that I’m... I just don’t wanna hurt you,” she said eventually, feeling bad enough that she probably already had.

Parker wouldn’t even look at him, and Eliot was sure she was already thinking about running, which he really didn’t want her to do right now. She was just close enough that he could reach for her hand and his fingers wrapping around her own at least got her attention. He tugged on her hand then, hoping she would realise the last thing he wanted her to do was leave.

“I’ll let you know if you do,” he promised, glad to see the smile return to her face as she allowed herself to be pulled up close to him again.

The truth was, Eliot was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to be feeling much pain with Parker here like this. Maybe he was a fool for allowing this to happen, but things really couldn’t get much crazier than they already had. She was pregnant with his kid, if that wasn’t the perfect excuse to get close, he couldn’t think what would be. She asked to stay, she wanted this, and though he could blame the medication, the concussion, and a hundred other things, the truth was Eliot really wanted this too. As they had already learnt the hard way, every action had consequences, but tonight they didn’t seem to matter quite so much, as something strangely like love took the two of them over.


	10. Chapter 10

Eliot woke up to find himself aching and sore, which he had expected, and yet alone, which he had not. Sure, he was used to waking up by himself, but he hadn’t expected it this particular day. Parker had asked to stay last night, not to sleep on the couch or in the spare room, but to be with him, to be held by him and to slumber peacefully in his arms.

They hadn’t had sex. It had seemed to be heading that way for a while, and Eliot probably could’ve done it even in his injured state (hell, it wouldn’t have been the first time!) but it never went that far, not this time around. Even through the painkiller-induced fuzz, he recalled most of what occurred, Parker being skittish, not because they were getting close, surprisingly, but because she seemed genuinely afraid of hurting him.

It was weird, it was usually Eliot on his guard about causing pain to those he cared for, those that didn’t deserve to suffer. Still, there was a strangely warm feeling attached to knowing Parker could care that much about him. She liked him, he knew that much, enough that she trusted he would keep her safe, and enough physically that they had slept together before now.

Of course, all this thinking would keep for later, after Eliot had his coffee and... well, usually he would go for a run but that might have to be a walk today since his ribs were still screaming when he tried to get up off the bed in search of Parker. He hoped she was still in the apartment, not least because he worried about not finding her at all if she was gone. He trusted her as much as she trusted him when it came to being safe and all, to do as they were asked to do by each other even, but Eliot still wasn’t convinced that Parker had lost her ability to freak out and bolt in the night.

Though the girl hated horses, she had her similarities to the gentle beasts. Beautiful and graceful, temperate and sweet at times, but capable of flipping out at a moments notice and running like her life depended on it when the idea struck to do so. If she was gone now, when she was carrying his child, just when they were getting genuinely close, Eliot wasn’t sure how he would handle it.

Thankfully, it seemed, he didn’t need to worry, at least not about Parker being gone. There she was in his kitchen, which was a concern in itself since it was Eliot’s favourite and prized room in the house, but that was okay. The sight of her made him momentarily forget to be worried or angry or anything else, as she buzzed around the room, dressed in her own pants and vest-top, with one of shirts thrown over the top, most of her hair tied up in a rough ponytail at the back. She was making coffee and possibly some kind of breakfast, hopping around on the floor in barefeet, taking every oppurtunity to hop her ass up onto the counter top just to avoid the cold tiles. It made Eliot smile in spite of himself, and somehow she noticed, even though her back was still to him.

“I know you’re there,” she said, still facing away. "And you’re not supposed to be, because I was making breakfast in bed for you,” she told him, almost sounding mad somehow.

“I’m not old or sick, Parker, I can get up for my breakfast,” he told her, apparently affronted by the suggested that he needed help.

He ought to have known she was just trying to do a nice thing, but it was a little late to take back the way he just snapped at her, even if he hadn’t really meant to. When she turned to look at him, he had his arms folded across his chest in that defiant way he often did, and Parker really wondered why she had even bothered here.

“I get everything wrong.” She shrugged her shoulders, showing no particular emotion despite the fact she ought to be mad or upset by the way he was being right now.

Huffing out a sigh, she went to walk by him out of the kitchen. Eliot seemed to come to his senses then and reached for her as she tried to get by.

“Parker,” he tried calling when she managed to evade him and walk away. "C’mon, don’t leave,” he called after her, turning to give chase.

They were half way through the living room when she suddenly turned on him, almost managing to startle the usually unflappable hitter.

“Why?” she wanted to know. "Because you care about this baby we made? Because I’m good for making out with when you’re bored and feeling crappy?” she asked him, still mad but also genuinely hurt, Eliot realised.

Still, he wasn’t about to let her accuse him of such things. He was in no way trying to use her or play her, and hated that she would think that after all they’d been through.

“That’s not fair,” he told her angrily, but his glares stopped working on her a long time ago.

“Life’s not fair, believe me, I should know,” she countered, folding her arms over her chest to match his own stance, standing toe to toe like they were in some kind of showdown.

“You think I don’t know that?” asked Eliot wide-eyed at her gall for saying such a thing. "You think you’re the only one feeling messed up by all of this?”

“Yes,” replied Parker, like a reflex. "No,” she changed her mind when she realised her mistake. "I don’t know!” she admitted eventually, her strong stance and expression breaking down in a moment, as emotions she still wasn’t used to came over her all at once. "I just, I wanted to do a nice thing and it was wrong,” she said, waving an arm emphatically, "and if I can’t even handle this, how am I...? How am I going to raise a baby, Eliot?” she asked him with real desperation in her tone and tears in her eyes. "I barely raised myself,” she added in a tiny voice that broke the hitter’s heart.

They couldn’t keep on doing this, lashing out at each other just when they got close. Parker was in way over her head here, and he kept on forgetting that every time he himself felt out of his depth. She was right when she said life wasn’t fair, and hers more than most had been way too hard so far. Eliot knew now more than ever that he wasn’t helping when really it was all he should be doing.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, only receiving a small humph of disbelief in response, from somewhere behind her hands that she was hiding her face behind. "Oh, babe, I am. I’m sorry,” he swore, as he reached for her, trying to get her to look at him. "I know you were tryin’ to... to take care of me, I guess, but I’m not used to that,” he reminded her as he finally prised her fingers away from her eyes and got her to look. "I’m better at being the one who takes care, y’know?”

Parker sniffed and nodded some like she understood, not bothering to shrug Eliot’s hands away as they stayed at her shoulders for now.

“You are good at that,” she agreed, swallowing hard, "but I don’t want this to be all you taking care of me. I want to help you too, because I...” she faltered then. "I just do,” she decided on eventually, leading to what seemed like a breath of relief from the both of them.

“I know.” Eliot nodded as he leaned in to plant a kiss on her forehead. "Maybe we just gotta get used to taking care of each other, okay?” he suggested. "Then maybe the idea of taking care of this baby’ll get a little easier.”

“Maybe,” Parker agreed, letting herself slide under the hitter’s arm, allowing him to walk her back towards the kitchen the way they had come from.

“Now we got that figured out, how about you get back to making breakfast?” he suggested. "I’ll jump in the shower and then we’ll see where we go from here.”

“Sure.” Parker nodded and smiled, looking much happier now than she had just minutes before.

Maybe Eliot wasn’t totally happy about letting her loose in his precious kitchen, and there certainly was a lot of stuff they were going to have to talk out before this was ever going to work. Still, right now he needed to concentrate on breathing, healing, and keeping things on an even keel with Parker so neither of them ended up getting mad or upset again since it really wasn’t helping her condition or his. Walking into the bathroom he contemplated the shower with distaste. Yep, this was going to hurt, but at least it would take his mind off what might be happening in the kitchen.

Parker was not so good at cooking, by her own admission, which was probably why she usually lived on cereal, take out, and junk. Still, she was pretty sure she could cope with eggs for breakfast, some coffee and juice to go along with. The thought occurred as she buzzed around the kitchen that she wasn’t sure what babies ate. Sure, they drank milk when they were born, she was aware of that, but after she just hadn’t clue. She was going to have to learn to cook stuff that babies liked to eat, healthy things that Eliot would approve of.

Further thought had Parker thinking that perhaps she could get away with having Eliot cook for the baby himself, since he was the expert. He probably knew all about the things kids would and should eat, same as he seemed to have all this knowledge on what was best for her. She smiled at the thought of how he liked to care of her and was willing to let her try and be there for him too. She never had anyone in her life like this before, and the skillet from which she had been serving up the scrambled eggs suddenly hit the tiled floor when a shocking thing occurred to her.

The loud clang had Eliot rushing from the bathroom, dripping water all over the floor, clad only in a towel that he held around his waist. Parker looked up fast as he appeared, opening her mouth to apologise for startling him as well as making a bit of a mess. The words stuck in throat as she took in the sight of him. Of course Parker had seen Eliot shirtless before, lots of times, and a naked on a couple of occasions too, but soaking wet from the shower was different. Besides, these past couple of days it was like the slightest sexy thought that appeared in Parker’s head just made her so hot all over. She idly wondered if it had something to do with her being pregnant but never dared ask so far.

“What happened?” asked Eliot then, jogging the thief from her thoughts that were headed in a direction she couldn’t quite handle. "Are you okay?” he checked, reaching the hand out to her that wasn’t holding his towel up.

Parker flinched before he ever made contact, rushing by him too suddenly.

“I’m fine,” she muttered. "Can I take a shower?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer was gone.

Eliot was frowning hard, completely confused as he looked between the disarray in his kitchen and the door through which Parker had just run. He hadn’t a clue what had made her drop the pan on the floor or why she bolted the moment he had come running. Apparently now wasn’t a good time to ask since she had gone straight for the bathroom and locked herself in.

Pushing a hand back through his hair, Eliot moved to pick the fallen skillet up from the kitchen floor, cursing under his breath about the puddle of water he’d made. He made a face when he spotted the eggs Parker had cooked for them, just a little glad that they wouldn’t be eating them given the state they were in. Honestly, the coffee didn’t look right either. Only Parker, special as she was, could screw up something so simple and normal, whilst being the best at outlandish things.

This whole situation was getting way out of hand, that much was clear to Eliot. He knew from the start things were not going to run smoothly when dealing with a pregnant Parker, but he really hadn’t expected to be out of his depth so fast. The trouble wasn’t her pregnancy really, he knew the facts and figures, what to do in all kinds of emergencies, the right foods for expectant mothers to eat and to avoid, the necessary precautions to be taken. The problems started because she was Parker and he was Eliot, and the two of them were just not emotionally equipped to deal with how they felt about each other, never mind a child as well.

Abandoning the mess in the kitchen, the hitter walked down to the bedroom, passing by the bathroom and hearing the water running. He figured Parker would be in there a while, giving him chance to first get dried off and dressed, and then hopefully to make a phone call he would rather she didn’t hear.

Within ten minutes, Eliot was pacing his bedroom floor, fully clothed now and clearly agitated with his cell to his ear, waiting for his friend to pick up.

“Hello?” answered the voice on the other end of the line, at last.

“Hey, Nate, it’s me,” the hitter told him, suddenly wishing he never made this call and yet knowing that without help he was only going to make this whole situation worse. "I, er, I kinda needed someone to talk to about stuff and... well, you said you were gonna be there,” he said, sitting himself down on the edge of the bed when all the pacing made his injuries pull and ache.

“It’s fine, Eliot,” the mastermind told him easily. "I meant what I said. What do you need?” he asked then. "Is it Parker? Is the baby okay?” he prompted when his friend paused too long in answering.

“Yeah, the baby’s fine, as far as I know.” Eliot nodded to himself since Nate sure couldn’t see. "It’s just, it's Parker. She stayed here last night.”

“Oh,” was the response that came from his friend, a small enough sound and yet the tone of it appeared not to be to Eliot’s liking.

“Get your mind outta the gutter, Nate, because nothing happened,” he snapped perhaps too fiercely, since he was forced to back track just seconds later. "Well, something happened, but that’s not the point,” he said definitely. "We were doin’ okay, y’know? It’s not easy, but we’re making it work, then it’s like... I don’t even know, man,” he said, throwing his free hand in the air and feeling stupid.

He had called up his friend in the hopes of getting some advice, some answers to the million questions running though his head. Now here they were having a conversation and his side of it consisted of nothing but inane rambling that even he himself couldn’t make any sense of. Oh, Eliot so wanted to hit something right now!

“Eliot, take it easy,” Nate advised, hearing the frustration in his voice. "C’mon, you think you’re the first guy to struggle in dealing with a pregnant woman? No, you’re not the first and you certainly won’t be the last,” he confirmed. "It’s just the way it is.”

“This is different, man. This is Parker,” he pointed out, as if it ought to be explanation enough. "One minute she seems fine and then... I just wish she’d talk to me about whatever’s going on inside her head!” he yelled perhaps too loudly since the woman herself was only a little way down the hall. "She’s hard enough to second guess on any normal day, but right now? I don’t know about this, Nate. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Nate sighed as he sat down in his armchair, an unexpected smile curving his lips. The problems he had to deal with amongst his team were many and varied and always had been. The squabbles, the disagreements, the actual injuries. He often felt like a father to at least three unruly teenagers, and yet right now he quite liked how much of a Dad he really felt. Eliot needed advice, genuine advice about something life-changing and real, and it was one of the very few times the hitter had actually sounded like he was unsure, not certain he could do what he knew he needed to.

“You’re not a quitter, Eliot,” he told him gently. "And I know that what you’re facing here is a whole different kind of unknown to anything you’ve faced before,” he sympathised, "but y’know Parker and this baby, this whole situation can be dealt with just like anything else you do in your life, or in your job.”

“My job is hurting people, Nate,” said Eliot sharply. "And for the first time in years, I’m actually... I don’t want to hurt her, not Parker or this kid.”

“I know,” his friend agreed. "but what I actually meant was, you can face this situation, no matter how tough it gets, by taking it one step at a time, trusting that your instincts are probably right, and learning from your mistakes, just like you do when you fight or grift or steal.”

Eliot was a little bemused to realise that Nate’s best fatherly advice was to come at this whole odd set up he and Parker were in as if it were a con. Not that he wanted them to dupe each other, but to apply the same principals to this relationship and parenthood that had made them great at the jobs they loved to do. It did make a lot of sense when he thought on it a moment.

“Thanks, Nate,” he said after a long moment. "I appreciate it.”

“Any time,” his friend assured him, before the conversation ended.

Mere seconds after hanging up the phone, Nate turned to see Sophie strolling in through the front door, her own cell in her hand which she was hastily stuffing into her purse. There was a smirk on his lips that made the grifter wonder what joke she had missed.

“What?” she asked curiously as he continued to stare at her.

“How’s Parker? She doing okay?” he checked, watching with barely concealed amusement as the grifter’s eyes shifted from her purse to Nate and back.

“How did you...?” she began to ask, but never got an answer as he walked by her, chuckling all the way to the kitchen.


	11. Chapter 11

A week had passed and mostly without incident. It seemed whatever advice Nate and Sophie had managed to give Eliot and Parker, it had worked. The odd couple had tried harder to be nice to each other, to not lose their temper, and to adjust to being relied upon as well as relying on someone else. It didn’t come easy or naturally, but then Parker being pregnant didn’t exactly feel particularly normal yet either. She was two months into her nine and since she was not showing any real physical signs yet and her sickness seemed to have cleared up some, it was possible to almost think she wasn’t having a baby at all.

Given how complicated it had gotten the first time, Parker decided not to stay over at Eliot’s apartment again. A part of her wanted to, first because she kind of liked trying to take care of him when he was suffering with his injuries, and second because honestly, the best night’s sleep she’d had in so long had been in his arms. Still, she figured a little space might do them both good; it was what Sophie had suggested. Eliot didn’t seem to mind too much, at least Parker was pretty sure he didn’t, but then reading people had never been her strong point and probably never would be.

The team hadn’t had a new job since the one that left Eliot beaten and Parker so upset. Nate had clients waiting in the wings but was acutely aware of the balance, or lack of same, within his crew/family of late. It made sense to let things settle before diving in again and he and Sophie had agreed to give the team a few days rest, up until the day of Parker’s next doctor’s appointment. She and Eliot would come over after that for a general visit, which would give the mastermind a chance to feel out the situation. He could launch into the ‘let’s get back work’ speech if the time seemed right, or keep his mouth shut if it didn’t.

Perhaps the last thing you would expect to be on Parker’s mind right now was jobs and cons but it was all that was filling her head as Eliot drove her to the doctor’s office. It made her seem quiet and distant, something that bothered the hitter more than he liked. Honestly, he was just glad his injuries had healed sufficiently that he wouldn’t have to explain to the doctor why he was all banged up, he hadn’t thought too much about Parker freaking out over this, she was fine with the first visit. Still, they both knew this was different. This doppler thing was going to be proof of the baby that existed between them, something they hadn’t had so much up to now.

“You okay?” Eliot checked as he pulled the truck up to the kerb and put it in park.

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” Parker shrugged, though it was clear something wasn’t right with her from the way she practically dove out of the door the second the truck stopped moving.

Eliot hurried after her and caught her arm as she reached the building.

“Hey,” he pulled her gently back from the door. "Seriously, Parker, what’s the matter with you?” he wanted to know.

She didn’t want to have to tell him the truth, but there was no way to avoid looking at him right now and when her eyes met his she saw what even she was able to identify as genuine concern and caring. She swallowed hard, determined not to burst into tears yet again, because honestly that was getting really boring right now.

“It bothers me, okay?” she said awkwardly, feeling so dumb. "I don’t know how I’m gonna feel when I can hear what’s in there,” she said, her hands going to her stomach that was barely more than its usual flat so far.

Eliot wasn’t sure what to say to that, and suddenly realised that they were stood in a bad place for a private conversation as a heavily pregnant woman struggled to get out of the door and around the two of them stood in the way. He dutifully held the door for her and apologised, before moving away, encouraging Parker to come with him.

“Y’know, darlin’, this isn’t easy for me either,” he admitted to her. "It’s not like I expected this to happen and... and yeah, it’s kinda scary,” he admitted.

Usually Eliot Spencer had no fear, at least that was what he told everyone or let them believe. Sometimes it was a lie, nobody was one hundred percent immune to such feelings, but he hid them damn well. It seemed the only way he was going to help Parker out was to admit he was as freaked by the prospect of fatherhood as she was by being a mother, and work it certainly did as a bright smile graced her lips at last.

“Thank you, Eliot.” She beamed at him, planting a kiss on his lips that he really wasn’t expecting. "I’m good now,” she assured him, grabbing a hold of his hand and heading back to the doctor.

Eliot couldn’t help the laughter that escaped his throat then. He was sure he would never fully understand Parker’s crazy ways, but sometimes it was kind of fun trying. The fact she was smiling now was enough to get him through this particular turn of events at least. Then it was on to the next thing, the meeting with the team. Sure, it was being disguised as a social gathering to hear how things were going with the baby, but Eliot knew better. Sophie would be digging for information on his and Parker’s as yet undefined relationship, and Nate would be trying to figure on whether any or all of his crew were ready for another job yet. No, this afternoon was going to be no more fun than this morning!

* * *

“Hey.” Sophie smiled and jumped up from her seat the moment Parker came in the door with Eliot on her heels. "How did it go?” she asked, a little excitedly.

Nate looked decidedly put out, not least because he had been having a conversation with the grifter up to that point, only for her to jump up when he was still mid-sentence. Women were strange creatures to him sometimes, the prospect of a baby seemed to be far more important than anything else, regardless of the topic.

“It was fine.” Parker shrugged, the one female who was decidedly underwhelmed by the prospect of pregnancy much of the time. "Kinda weird actually,” she admitted, as she took a seat on the couch with Sophie, and Eliot wandered off to the kitchen.

“You heard the baby’s heartbeat, didn’t you?” the grifter wanted to know. "What was that like?”

“Like this tiny little thump, thump thing.” The thief giggled, though the reason for her laughter wasn’t exactly clear, as usual. "It’s nice though, knowing it’s beating away in there,” she said, her hands going to her stomach then. "Besides, it was totally worth the weirdness to see Eliot smile so much,” she teased him, getting his attention immediately from behind the refrigerator door.

“The smile goes away when you piss me off, Parker,” he reminded her, a sugar-coated threat since the same grin sat on his face right now.

“But everything is okay?” checked Nate as he wandered over, casting a wary eye over at Hardison where he pretended to be engrossed in whatever he was doing on his laptop.

It was clear he wasn’t really concentrating, that he was interested in what was happening. A lot of his anger over this whole pregnancy seemed to be aimed at Eliot, the brother he saw as a betrayer. Parker could do no wrong, which was understandable given how much he cared about her. Nate only hoped they found a way through it in the next seven months, or things were only going to get messier.

“Everything’s fine, now that I got her eating right,” said Eliot as he returned from the kitchen with a bottle of water each for himself and Parker who had expressed a thirst in the truck on the way over.

She ought to have thanked him, but instead just stuck out her tongue for the comment about her diet, before turning her attention to the others.

“We have a sonogram in a few weeks,” she told them. "That’s gonna be even weirder. Y’know they can actually see the baby while it’s still in there?” she told Sophie, with wide eyes that proved she had never realised such a thing was possible before.

“But that’s a good thing,” the grifter enthused. "See that little bundle of joy you’ve got growing in there. It’s a beautiful thing, Parker,” she impressed the point upon her, and yet the little thief remained unmoved.

“I guess.” She shrugged easily, sipping her water. "Oh damn it!” she exclaimed so suddenly that everyone went on alert, sure that she was in pain or something terrible was wrong. "I had a question I forgot to ask the doctor,” she sighed heavily.

The others all let out a breath none of them knew they were holding at the realisation it was actually nothing major that had Parker cursing. Of course, that gave way to a four-way curiosity at what her apparently important and yet forgotten question was.

“You want to try us with your question?” offered Nate, just a little worried as to what it might be about but feeling the need to try and be supportive here, after the numerous speeches Sophie had given him on the topic. "I mean, I was married to a pregnant woman once, I do know how some of it works,” he reminded her, with a vague gesture of his hand that could’ve been anything.

Parker looked at Nate then and tried to judge whether her question was okay to ask or not. She still wasn’t really very good at knowing what was good for public consumption and what wasn’t. As a general rule, she felt she could say anything to just Sophie because she had always told her girl-friends shared everything. Lately, Parker had started to realise that no matter what she said to Eliot he did his best not to be mad at her, but with Nate and Hardison, she still wasn’t quite sure of herself when it came to this kind of thing.

“Um, I don’t think it matters,” she said with a shrug and a smile after a long moments silence. "Are you making lunch now?” she asked next, turning on a dime as Parker was wont to do as she looked to Eliot for an answer.

“Er, sure, yeah,” he said, getting up from where he had been perched on the arm of the chair, "but y’know, babe, if you have something you wanna ask...” he prompted, a little worried there was something wrong and she was keeping it to herself.

“I said it doesn’t matter! God!” she exclaimed, almost angry that he was pushing the point. "I’m just hungry, and since you wanna control everything I eat, can you please make lunch already?” she asked him, with frustration evident in her tone.

“I just... I was... Fine!” Eliot said at length, throwing his hands in the air and heading into the kitchen.

There was an awkward silence then, nobody sure exactly what was the right thing to say. It was a little odd, having Parker and Eliot bicker more like an old married couple rather than their usual teasing and such that had bordered on siblings in a way. Sophie glanced at Hardison, who’s eyes had long ago left his computer screen as he watched the unlikely couple a while. It wasn’t easy for him knowing the girl he had hoped would be his own was having a baby with a man he had called ‘bro’ and really meant it before. It was harder still, Sophie suspected, as he realised the same thing she was noticing; Eliot and Parker were falling for each other, and it became a little clearer every day.

* * *

Things returned to a state of near-normalcy as the Leverage crew sat down to eat lunch together around the table in Nate’s apartment. The topic of conversation turned to other things, subjects not so much related to Parker’s pregnancy or her undefined relationship with Eliot. They talked like the friends they were about more general things, about jobs and cons, about anything but those topics that led to badness too easily.

Each person in turn tried not to notice the one thing about the thief’s current condition that was drawing attention at the table. Weird food cravings were a sure sign of pregnancy, everybody knew that, and so when Parker had fetched syrup and sprinkles to top off her meat and potatoes, it was hard to ignore the reason why.

Eliot opened his mouth to tell her not to do it, but knew it was pointless. If it was what she was craving he was going to let her do it, just this once. After all, he could use not getting into a fight with her right now. Getting stressed wasn’t going to help her condition, and they already had one altercation today.

“So, when we startin’ the next job, Nate?” asked Hardison, wincing almost imperceptibly as Parker shoved a forkful of syrup covered potato into her mouth and chewed with relish. "You got a client lined up?”

“Er, potentially, yes,” the mastermind admitted from the other end of table. "But, um, we don’t have to talk about that right now,” he said, with a pointed head tilt towards the blonde thief.

“Don’t do that,” said Eliot, noticing the gesture. "Parker is still part of this team, don’t treat her like she’s not here,” he snapped, clearly annoyed, though Parker herself seemed not to even notice what had happened.

“We wouldn’t do that.” Sophie shook her head at the hitter, before turning her attention to Parker. "Sweetie, you know you will always be part of this team, part of this family.” She smiled kindly. "We would never want you to feel pushed out just because you’re pregnant.”

Parker looked around at the four faces of her best friends, feeling strange. It had been years and still being cared for, being part of a permanent team like this, it was not normal to her. So long being alone, convincing herself it was for the best, it was taking forever to retrain her senses, to accept this was her situation now.

Swallowing her mouthful of food with an almost audible gulp, she silently declared herself done with lunch, as she dropped her knife and fork down onto the plate.

“Okay,” she said, glancing around the table. "So, I’m not going on jobs anymore,” she declared plainly. "At least, not while I’m pregnant. I know we were working stuff out that I could do, but it’s no good.” She shook her head, her eyes focusing quite definitely on Eliot as she continued. "Things get messed up and people get hurt...”

“Parker-” he tried to interrupt her, but she wouldn’t hear it.

“Let me finish!” she cut in, one of the few people who would dare to interrupt where the hitter was concerned and fewer who would get away with it. "So, I’m not doing it anymore. I mean, I still wanna be on the team, but I can stay here, help make plans.” She smiled bravely, even though they all knew it must be killing her to admit she could no longer do what she loved, even if it wouldn’t be forever and was for the best. "Maybe I can meet new clients with you, Nate,” she said cheerfully then. "I could do that.”

Parker wasn’t quite adept enough at reading emotions still to know that the mastermind was less than impressed with that particular plan. He had taken her with him to meet with clients before and it tended not to end well. Still, she was so in need of a purpose right now, there was just no way to deny her.

“Um, yeah, maybe,” he said, as if considering it. "We’ll... we’ll talk about that.” He nodded, feeling sick at the very idea.

“Okay.” Parker nodded gratefully. "But that’s all. No field work, at all,” she declared, making sweeping motions with her hands to show the flat-out nothing else she would be doing from now on.

“If that’s what you want, Parker,” said Sophie, reaching a hand to her friends arm. "I have to say I do think it’s the right decision,” she told her kindly.

“Too true, mama.” Hardison nodded, silent up to now as he often was when talk of her pregnancy started up. "You and that baby o’ yours are too important to be putting into danger.”

“Agreed,” said Eliot, meeting the hacker’s eyes just for a second, but long enough to prove that no matter what else, they did still agree on one thing.

Parker mattered too much to allow her to get hurt in any way at all. They were all here to look out for each other, but right now, priority one was the little thief given her condition. Of course, for both Hardison and Eliot, in some ways it had always been about her, and probably always would be.


	12. Chapter 12

Parker thought she was doing okay. Sure, she was pregnant and that was still kind of scary, but she was taking each day as it came and it seemed dealable so far. The team were adjusting along with her, taking her condition into consideration without making her feel like a spare part amongst the crew. Eliot was being so much nicer to her than anybody else and they were coping with whatever the hell was happening with them. 

Defining relationships wasn’t easy for Parker, and neither was figuring out feelings, so mostly she didn’t try. They got along like friends, she thought, and he kept an eye on what she ate and all. Mostly the team all ate together and Eliot would cook, with the others taking turns to help out. It was a win-win situation since it ensured Parker didn’t keep herself and her baby alive through sugary cereal, fortune cookies, and take outs alone, plus it was easier than her going to Eliot’s apartment or him trying to come over to her place. Somehow things felt too complicated when they were alone. Parker almost felt like she was supposed to act differently and it made her uncomfortable, despite the fact the hitter had always been the one person that made her feel most safe and comfy before.

It was a little over a week since the doppler now. Parker had expected to be more freaked out by hearing the heartbeat of the child within her, but actually she was okay. She hadn’t even noticed she was holding onto Eliot’s hand until after the event, but there was a strangely warm and special moment that passed between them there at the doctor’s office. They were always going to be connected by this kid, hers and his together. That was the part that was alternately a nice feeling and a reason to freak as far as Parker could tell.

Still, tonight she thought she was coping, as Eliot drove her home from McRorys, dropping her off around the corner from one of her many hide outs in the city. She had never told him the exact location of any, though of course he knew about the apartment on Michigan Avenue now. He had figured that she used each place she called home in some kind of odd random rotation, but he never asked why or how she remembered where she was supposed to be, and it really never occurred to her to explain. She never did go over to his place again, not since that night when they made out and came all too close to feeling like a properly domestic couple.

The physical stuff didn’t bother Parker, not really. Eliot was one of the few people in the world she trusted on instinct, almost from the very beginning. She never really flinched when he touched her, jumping willingly into his arms not long after they first met. Now she was happy to sleep in his embrace, to give her body over to him without worrying about getting hurt or being left after it was over.

What bothered Parker was the emotions attached to that stuff. She was getting too comfortable, feeling too much. The message that couples always argue and break up flashed in her head like a neon light that wouldn’t end, no matter how much she tried to tell herself it was okay, because it was Eliot, and he was always going to be there. His promises had to mean more than those made by others she had known in her past, they had to, but being alone was all she’d ever known for so long, making the leap into anything else was scarier than anything else in the world to Parker, except for one thing.

In this particular moment, Parker had never hated being alone so very much in her life. Sat bolt upright in her own bed, cold sweat running down her back, she was petrified. Nightmares she could handle, usually anyway, but this had been so intense and so different, she just needed to not be here alone right now. Her precious warehouse that usually brought such comfort was nothing in this moment, when all Parker really wanted was for Eliot to tell her everything was going to be okay. She knew it meant she was relying on someone too much, but she couldn’t help it.

Up and dressed in seconds, Parker hadn’t known even she could move so fast until she found herself on the stairs to Eliot’s apartment in what felt like a mere instant. Of course, it would have been faster and more fun to come in via the window, but her pregnancy said she had to use conventional methods. Even the elevator was out, since riding inside it was intensely underwhelming and annoying to a person who had regularly enjoyed a ride on top of the car before now.

Breaking in was easy enough, and Parker had to wonder if Eliot was a little stupid for not updating when he realised any decent person with a set of picks could get into his place unnoticed. She had told him that very thing just a couple of weeks ago. Of course, Parker didn’t realise that Eliot had left his lock easily pickable on purpose, just in case Parker came over and wanted in when he wasn’t there or unavailable to answer. He liked her to think she could come and go as she pleased, but giving her a key seemed like a step too far somehow.

Tonight was the perfect test for the experiment regarding Parker’s dropping by for a visit, and she easily slipped into the living room of Eliot’s apartment, the front door closed and locked behind her as if nothing had happened. She was half way to the hallway that lead to the other rooms, when Parker stopped, hovering by the bookcase to her left. For a while now she had been wondering on a few things, specifically that question she never got to ask the doctor at their last visit. The pregnancy book held all the answers, at least she figured it must do. Her fear and panic from her nightmare vastly dimished just by being here in the safety of Eliot’s apartment, Parker ran her fingers along the edge of the shelf until she found the volume she wanted. 

Eliot had heard movement in his apartment, and though he half expected it to be Parker creeping around, he was still on his guard as he rushed through to the living room, battle ready as ever, though slightly under-dressed for company. He came upon his little thief, sat lotus-style on the carpet by the now illuminated standard lamp with the pregnancy book sat across her knees, she was apparently engrossed.

Parker was indeed so intent on her reading, though she knew Eliot had appeared she did not look up. Apparently it was totally normal for pregnant women to produce more hormones than usual, increasing the sex drive to ridiculous proportions. That sure did explain what happened when she was doing laundry the other day - that had never happened solely from sitting on the spin dryer before! It was strange for Parker to realise that for once in her life she fell into the ‘normal’ category of people, but strange in a nice way, she figured, as she finally let her eyes drift up from the page when Eliot spoke to her. 

“Parker, it’s 2am,” he told her, sounding tired. "What the hell...?”

‘Yes, indeed,’ thought Parker ‘What the hell?’ was right! Here stood Eliot, looking hot as all hell itself, his chest exposed by the shirt he had not bothered to button somewhere along the line, showing off muscles she knew were there but tried not to think on too much. She wanted him, in all kinds of ways she could never explain. She needed to be close as much as anything after the way this night had started, and now she knew it was normal to want him so much, it didn’t feel quite so wrong or bad.

This was how Eliot came to find his arms suddenly full of Parker, her lips on his, as she all but knocked him off his feet with the force of throwing herself at him.

It wasn’t that it didn’t feel good, it always felt good, and it wasn’t as if he had a reason to stop this from happening. They’d done it before, she was already pregnant... Eliot caught himself when he realised he was functioning on Parker logic, repeating things she had said to him the last time they got this close. Parker logic was cute and all, but he couldn’t be using it right now, especially when he realised her fingers had travelled south, working at getting his jeans unfastened already.

“Woah, slow down, Parker,” he told her, though a large part of him was screaming inside his head telling him what a fool he was.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know how good sex with Parker was, and now here he was telling her no. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t want to or couldn’t do this with her, it was that he wasn’t convinced it was going to help either of them right now. As if their relationship wasn’t screwed up enough already, he really had to be the grown up sensible person in all this, since Parker was hell bent on being both the crazy and the nympho part all on her own.

“We did it before, what’s the difference?” She shrugged, wriggling out of the the grip of his hands which had a hold of her arms.

“’Cause you’re not acting right, Parker,” he told her, pushing his hair out of his face so he could meet her eyes. "Something’s wrong,” he said, knowing it was right before he ever met her gaze, but doubly sure when she tried to shy away immediately.

“You always say there’s something wrong with me,” she huffed, turning away from him then.

Eliot didn’t like to think of some of the less pleasant things he’d said about her sanity or lack of same over the years. Most of it was meant in a friendly banter sort of a way, but he doubted it sounded in any way light and friendly to her when he was in an angry mood, and that was a not small portion of the time to be fair. Still, it wasn’t the point right now.

“This is different,” he insisted, all the more worried when he stepped up behind her and realised Parker was visibly shaking in the half-light. "What happened with you?” he asked, in the gentlest voice he could find. "Why’d you come over here so late and...?” The calm of his tone broke immediately he realised the connotations of the question he just asked. "Parker,” there was steel in his voice as he spoke her name then and she almost visibly winced at the sound of it, knowing he was mad and why. "Did you walk over here? Alone? Past midnight?” he asked, with barely concealed anger.

“Well, yeah,” she admitted, whirling around to face him fast with a grin that was forced at best, "but I’m fine!” she insisted, really not wanting him to be angry.

Somehow Eliot being mad at her was just the worst feeling. When her foster fathers got mad she was scared sometimes, and that was bad. With Eliot there was no fear, but a horrible sinking feeling that came with realising she had done something he didn’t approve of. Perhaps it was guilt because she thought she’d spoilt something, she couldn’t be sure, Parker only knew she didn’t like it.

“Hell, Parker, you could’ve... Something could’ve happened to you,” he reminded her, deciding that telling her horror stories of the things that could’ve gone down only meant he’d have to consider each of those things all the more himself, and right now he couldn’t handle it. "I can’t, I can’t have bad things happening to you, okay? I just can’t,” he told her firmly, his anger giving way to something else as he looked at her, all innocent eyes and fearless panic, as he put his hands to her shoulders and met her eyes. "You ever need me and it’s late, you call me, I’ll come runnin’,” he promised, "but please, sweetheart, don’t do that again”

Nodding her head seemed like the best plan since Parker wasn’t totally clear on what words came next. She wanted to do what Eliot wanted, because to see him smile made her stomach flip in the best way. He cared so much for her safety and welfare, though there was still that niggling doubt that without the baby they had made, he might not be quite so worried. The sweet moment that followed as he kissed her forehead and sighed in relief she was okay, was broken in an instant when she spoke again.

“So, can we have sex now?” she asked plain as she ever asked anything, and yet something still wasn’t right about her.

Eliot had to be good at reading people. As a hitter, you had to know the enemy, figure out what they were thinking and what they were going to do long before it happened. With Parker, the signs weren’t as easy to spot. She was an interesting study because she just didn’t react or behave like anyone else he ever met. Still, over the years he had adjusted to her, so he could almost keep up with her, at least til her pregnancy hormones kicked in recently and sent her spiralling off in a whole new direction. Right now he knew something was wrong, and they weren’t going to be doing anything here tonight until he figured out what it was.

“Parker, is that why you came over here?” he asked her seriously.

She knew he was trying to read the answer off her face before she ever gave it, which led to her falling over lies before the truth came out.

“Yes. No. Well, not exactly...” she admitted, forcing away thoughts of her real reason for coming over, as the nightmare she had experienced loomed larger than life and twice as frightening in the back of her mind. "I needed to borrow this,” she told him, reaching around him for the fallen book that was somehow still open to the right page, "to answer my question.”

“The one you never got to ask the doctor?” Eliot recalled. "You wanna tell me about that now?” he checked, wondering why the issue had suddenly become so urgent in the middle of the night.

It didn’t take long for him to wish he really had not asked her, as the book was placed in his hands and Parker gestured half way down the left page.

“See. For once in my life, I’m normal.” She shrugged as he read the information about women and their hormones, the hyped up sex drive they could experience during pregnancy.

“Huh,” was his only reaction as he considered what that could mean, in all its good and bad ways... mostly the good.

Eliot wasn’t usually one for letting his mind wander away from the topic at hand, but in the middle of the night and with all that was going on, it was a little too easy. He might’ve been lost for a while in a hot little fantasy that played inside his mind, til Parker called for his attention. Her hand on his arm made him start, but the urge to let her do what she wanted to went away in a second when he met her eyes. It wasn’t passion he was seeing there and so shook off his own urges in a moment then.

“You still didn’t tell me why you really came here, Parker,” he told her, closing the book with an audible thud. "I’m not buying that this is all it is.” He shook his head, waving said book at her. "You had days and nights enough to come lift this, why now?”

Parker opened her mouth to answer and immediately closed it again. She wanted to tell him about this, wanted him to make it all better, but at the same time it was almost easier not to do so. Recalling nightmares was always bad and she tried not to do it, just pushed them down, blocked them out, and wished them away. This wouldn’t go, like a niggling feeling deep inside that wasn’t going to give in until she let it out. At least with Eliot she ought to be safe to do so, but it still felt weird saying those words.

“Because... because I freaked out, okay?” she admitted, seeming almost mad at herself for it, as she turned away from him. "I had this dream, like a nightmare, and not the regular kind ‘cause I can handle those,” she declared, thankfully not giving Eliot more than a moment to wonder on what those entailed. "It was just... I was trying to be me and do all the things I normally do, and this baby was there,” she explained, her back still to Eliot as she went on, waving her arms in emphatic gestures. "I didn’t hate the baby, I loved it, it was weird but I did, but I just couldn’t do it on my own. It cried in the vent shaft, and it got all cranky when I didn’t crack the safe fast enough,” her voice broke a little as her hands went to her face a moment, "and then I was on the roof and... and it just slipped through my fingers...” She mimed the action as tears filled her eyes and her voice all but collapsed in on her.

Eliot’s heart was already breaking for her as he reached a hand out to her shoulder and gently turned her around. She was in floods of silent tears by now, desperate to hold it together like she normally would, but finding it impossible as she shook like a leaf in his grasp. She was scared, genuinely terrified by the subconscious worry of being a useless mother.

“Oh darlin’,” he sighed, pulling her closer and letting her lose herself in his embrace, he face buried in his chest. "C’mon, it’s okay,” he promised, propping his chin on top of her head and stroking her hair comfortingly. "It was just a nightmare and it’s all over now.”

“But it’s not!” she explained, bringing her head up so fast she almost clocked him in the jaw. "We’re having a baby, Eliot,” she told him, as if he was so stupid he hadn’t noticed. "A real live kid and I know you say you’re gonna be there, but one day...”

“One day, what?” he prompted when she failed to explain, her eyes shifting away from his gaze that was hardly ever less than intense.

“One day you’ll leave, and then I don’t know how I’ll deal,” she said sadly. "I mean, I can be alone, I did it before, I could do it again,” she explained, "but alone now won’t be just me.”

“Parker.” Her name was more of a growl than a word when he spoke it then, though he was doing his level best not to get mad. "I already told you, I’m not going anywhere. Babe, you gotta believe that,” he impressed upon her, not knowing how else to make her understand.

He tried to prove with words and actions both that he was in this for the long haul. Sure, it was weird for him, as scary as it was for her in some ways, though he tried not to admit it. He was trying to be so strong for her sake, being as he was a little more equipped to deal with the emotions and such that came flying out of left field each day this pregnancy went on. Still, it didn’t seem to be enough.

“What if you can’t help it?” she asked, so quietly and with such sadness in her voice and eyes as she looked up then that Eliot could hardly stand it. "What if I’m so awful you have to go? What if the baby is so awful...?”

“Hey, now that’s enough of that crap!” he snapped then, losing the temper he’d been fighting so hard to hold onto until now. "I’m not hearing this from you!” he said definitely, his hands grasping her at the shoulders, hard enough to make her pay attention but never so much as to hurt her. "You’re good people, Parker. Look at me!” he demanded when she tried to avoid it. "You are not a bad person, okay? I have done so much worse than you could ever imagine,” he admitted, "and honestly I’d prefer you didn’t try. I hope to God this kid doesn’t turn out too much like me,” he told her with a painful laugh that almost took his voice away with it, "but whatever he or she is or does, we’re gonna handle it, the two of us, together. You read me?”

The moment was so serious and intense. Eliot hadn’t really meant to get so worked up over this, but he just couldn’t stand to hear Parker talk about herself like she was so terrible. Sure, she was a thief, and technically that was bad, but she never set out to hurt anybody or cause any real damage. She was a minx at the best of times and a real menace at her worse, but Eliot could never switch off the feelings he had for her, the need to care for and protect her, the unnamed, unfocused knot of emotions that was taking shape in his heart for only her.

Parker didn’t know how to react to all he said. She was so used to being yelled at all her life, told she was dumb and stupid and worthless. To stand here now, knowing that the fire burning in Eliot’s eyes was not pure anger at her, but borne out of something else, out of how much he cared for her, it lit a fire under Parker’s heart that warmed her entire being. Maybe she was an idiot getting so worked up by a bad dream, she was a grown woman after all, not a little kid. She knew everything was going to be okay when Eliot said so, she believed him and trusted in him more than she ever had anybody else. A weak smile came to her lips then as she nodded her head, the only response she could find to his speech.

“Hormones are exhausting,” she declared as she fell against his solid chest, sighing happily as his arms once again wrapped around her form.

Eliot felt oddly relieved that she was at last neither crying nor trying to jump his bones. Sure, he liked women, he liked Parker, and he liked sex, but tonight just wasn’t the time for such a thing to happen between them. Taking advantage of her upset state after everything else, it would not be the smart move, and Eliot liked to think he was at least a little more intelligent that people expected.

“C’mon, blondie,” he said gently, his hand in her hair as he got her to look at him. "Let’s get some sleep.”

She slowly nodded her agreement to that, a yawn slipping out as if on cue. With his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist, Parker and Eliot headed through to the bedroom together. He dropped a kiss on top of her head as they cleared the door, not even bothering to wonder on the weirdness of the situation as a moment later they lay down together to sleep.

They both remained fully clothed, partially covered over by comforter too. Anyone who saw might think they made a very strange sight, but no-one was here to judge and right now neither one of them would probably care anyway. Parker was too tired to be bothered by much as she curled into Eliot’s side, as comfortable as she knew she would be beneath his arm with her head on his chest.

The hitter himself wasn’t sure he was going to sleep at all, and almost forgot to even breathe when Parker, still with her eyes closed, reached for his free hand. She placed his palm on her own stomach then and smiled sleepily.

“Daddy’s gonna keep you safe,” she whispered, as if speaking to the baby inside of her, before she drifted off into slumber.

Eliot would never normally admit such a thing, not even to himself, but he swore there were tears stinging in the corners of his eyes then. Parker had such trust in him, the like of which she never showed in anybody else. If she had come out and told him she loved him, he couldn’t have soared higher than in this moment.

Sure, he was as scared as she was in some ways. Being a father was a huge responsibility for anybody, and it wasn’t as if Eliot ever really expected this to happen. He hadn’t given it a thought in God only knew how many years, not until Parker came out with her news about the results of their one hot steamy night together. He wasn’t about to tell her how freaked out he could easily get about this baby and the future, wherever it was headed. He had to be the strong one, inside and out, just like always. If he wasn’t used to that role by now, he never would be.


	13. Chapter 13

Eliot felt comfortable in the kitchen. It was strange how it made everything okay, when he was stood by the counter top, expertly passing a knife through whatever he was chopping, pans on the stove fizzing and bubbling as he needed. Maybe it was the fact he felt in control, in a much larger and easier way than when he was fighting. He knew his own strength and skill, he trusted he could win against almost any opponents that came his way. Still, this was where he found his calm centre, in cooking and preparing food.

Even with Parker here, being her usual crazy self, Eliot maintained his calm. To be fair, she was being pretty still and quiet herself, though he doubted it would last long. She had slept the better part of six hours in his arms, which the hitter counted as a minor miracle for a woman who never seemed capable of doing anything but fidget and mess around. Sitting still wasn’t her strong point, being quiet even less so, and yet she had been a perfect angel in his arms last night.

Eliot himself hadn’t slept much. It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable with her there, in fact quite the opposite. For the longest time he believed he was built for fighting, for death and destruction. Since he became part of the Leverage crew, he started to realise all he really wanted was to help and protect people. Sure, others had to suffer for that to work, the enemy always had to be brought down, but protection was what he was ultimately made for.

Right now, the two most important people in the world for him to protect were Parker and the unborn child she carried. They were his future, in some way or other that Eliot hadn’t entirely figured out yet. Thinking on it had meant he got little sleep, as his mind whirred at a mile a minute with how they were going to get through the next few months, and the years that followed on after.

It was a hell of a commitment they had made that night, though they never knew it. Some crazy twist of fate had ensured that despite the protection he and Parker had made a baby that would tie them together forever. There was no way he would ever leave her, not when she had his child, though it had made Eliot wonder if he would say the same were she not pregnant with his baby. Parker meant a lot to him, always had, even when she was proving that she really was twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag. He had always felt the need to protect her, above even the rest of the team. Maybe it was because she never had anybody else, or maybe because she seemed the most innocent and fragile sometimes. She put so much trust in him, and Eliot only hoped he could live up to that, even if he didn’t understand where it really came from. Unable to explain it, he decided not to bother trying.

Instead, the hitter and soon-to-be father concentrated on other things. He tried to figure out how they moved forward, him and Parker, just one step at a time. Last night could have just been another night of meaningless sex if he let her have her way, and hell, a part of him really did want to. The fact was he cared more about her than to just use her that way. He wanted her to tell him what was wrong so he could make it better, and apparently he had succeeded given the way she slept soundly in his arms; no more nightmares, no more tears.

Glancing sideways at Parker, Eliot realised she looked just as happy as ever right now. Still in her clothes from the night before, she was sat on the counter top, swinging her legs like a kid as she poured over pages in the pregnancy book. He almost didn’t want to know exactly what she was reading about, especially when he was cooking eggs and all. What he’d read so far had caused mild distress at times. Parts of a woman that he only ever thought of in one way now had other less pleasant uses attached to them, uses that had Eliot making faces and closing the book much faster than he opened it! He wasn’t as dumb as people thought; he understood the science of making babies and all, but as a man there were limits to how many detailed, graphic pictures and diagrams he needed to see!

It worried Eliot briefly if it was a good idea to let Parker read the pregnancy book at all, but at least he was there to tell her it was okay if anything freaked her out. So far she seemed fine, and it was probably best she understood what was happening to her own body, since she really had nobody experienced in this kind of thing to ask - no mother or sisters, not even any female friends that had been in this position, since her only confidante was Sophie.

“Do you think it’s weird?” she asked so suddenly that Eliot almost dropped the spatula out of his hand.

“Depends what you’re talking about,” he checked, somewhat wary of where her mind was wandering.

After all, she was still reading that damn pregnancy book. She could be about to ask him anything, and most of the possibilities were not what he wanted to think about when he was about to eat.

“You and me,” she began to elaborate, whilst Eliot concentrated on not looking at her whilst he plated up the food. "I mean, okay, so we didn’t exactly like each other all that much at the start,” she admitted, closing the book and abandoning it on the counter, "but you always looked out for me, we always kind of got each other, y’know? That’s weird, right?”

“I don’t know, darlin’.” He shrugged non-committally, because honestly he hadn’t given it much thought in that way.

Now that she said it, he realised maybe she was right. As crazy as she was, he always cared enough to watch out for her. As tough as he was, she never once seemed wary of him. It was as weird as she suggested since her default setting around people who laid a hand on her was to stab first, ask questions later. She hadn’t ever flinched when he touched her, whether it was to get her attention or bodily pick her up and move her. Usually he wasn’t so tactile with people either, and yet he never did yell at her for hugging him and barely lost his temper even when she was poking bruises or whatever.

Of course, they’d done a whole lot of other touching that night when they made this baby, and just thinking of it now made Eliot wonder if it was the heat of the stove he was feeling or something else running through him at the steamy memories.

“You’re boiling over,” said Parker too suddenly, making his eyes snap to meet hers.

A second later he was cursing as he followed her eyes to a pan on the stove that had been left too long and was throwing hot milk over the sides.

“I still think it’s weird,” she said, picking off where she left off apparently, despite Eliot’s silence on the subject so far. "I never had a lot of people that mattered much until the team, but it’s still different. You’re different... in a weird kind of nice way.” She smiled.

Eliot smiled too, though he wasn’t sure why he was doing so. Sometimes Parker was just too cute not to smile at, he figured, as he cleaned up the mess he’d made in the kitchen. Then picking up a plate of bacon and eggs for each for them, he deposited them on a tray, with coffee and orange juice and everything else they’d need. Gesturing for her to get down off the counter and follow him, they went through to the next room and sat down at the table to eat.

Parker was silent then, except to make yummy noises over the food she was apparently enjoying. Eliot was all for not talking right now, since all roads led to awkward when they were forced to have a conversation about anything serious lately. The baby, their undefined relationship, the team and their cons, none of it was easy to discuss right now, not whilst Parker was getting emotional over just about everything, and Eliot hadn’t yet got it all straight in his own head, despite spending most of the night going over and over and over…

Parker took her cell from her pocket when she heard a ringing, only to realise it wasn’t hers making a noise. Eliot moved to fetch his from where he left it on the shelf last night. The ‘unknown number’ display had him frowning, but not half so much as the voice that met his ear when he took the call.

“I told you, not anymore,” he said, as Parker listened, chewing her bacon thoughtfully. "It’s over, babe, I made that clear, okay?”

Eliot returned to the table without a word and continued eating. He wasn’t stupid and he knew within moments Parker would ask what the call was all about, he just preferred to delay the inevitable as long as possible. It gave him a little time to work out how he was going to play this, where he could lay his foot without getting it blown off by a landmine...

“What was that all about?” the expected question came all too quick and Eliot fought the urge to visibly squirm, though he wasn’t sure why.

“An ex,” he replied succinctly, pouring himself a cup of coffee, mostly because it meant not having to meet Parker’s gaze.

She was staring, so much so he was surprised his hair hadn’t caught fire with the intensity of her gaze on the side of his head then. She wanted details and Eliot couldn’t really see how to keep from answering her. After all, their friendship plus one night stand was fast developing into a new kind of relationship, one where he probably shouldn’t be seeing other women!

“An ex what?” checked Parker, apparently not willing to believe her own assumptions on the matter, or maybe just genuinely baffled since Eliot had to wonder how many real relationships she ever really had.

“An ex-girlfriend,” he confirmed, glancing up a moment to see her reaction.

“Huh,” she said, just that one non-word as she continued to eat her breakfast, looking more confused than anything else.

Just when Eliot thought things couldn’t be anymore awkward, here they were. He hadn’t a clue where the conversation tended next. Knowing Parker her next question could be anything from ‘did you have sex with this ex-girlfriend?’ to ‘what kind of pig did the bacon come from?’. Geez, Eliot was never this nervous of screwing up with anybody else, reminding him instantly of what Parker had said to him in the kitchen - things had always been different when it came to the two of them.

“So, am I your girlfriend now?” she asked after a while spent in awkward silence. "I mean, I eat here, I sleep here, you take care of me,” she reeled off, not yet ready for him to answer the question posed apparently. "We make out sometimes and we had sex before. Isn’t that all the stuff you do with a girlfriend?”

Eliot opened his mouth to answer but failed to make a sound. He couldn’t find the right words, since what she said in theory was true. Still, it just didn’t fit in his head that Parker was his girlfriend somehow.

“Well, maybe,” he said at length, "but it’s different,” he stalled for time but it barely worked.

“Why?” came her instant question as he ought to have known it would.

“Because... you’re Parker,” he told her, with just a hint of frustrated anger leaking into the tone he was trying to keep even, "and it’s just... different.”

He didn’t want to hurt her, he really didn’t, and yet Eliot knew he had just made it sound like the last thing he wanted was for Parker to have a title that bound the together somehow. Maybe it was true, maybe the whole commitment thing had him freaked, or maybe it was just the fear of screwing up if he actually put a label on this thing. Right now he just wanted to eat breakfast and feel good about the fact he’d hugged her nightmares away last night. One step at a time was easier to deal with than this. Trust Parker to be normal for once in her life, to be the woman who needed to make something out of whatever the hell this was between them and name it as well.

“It’s fine.” She shrugged, apparently realising he was stressing somehow. "I really didn’t want to be your girlfriend anyway,” she waved hand to dismiss the idea. "It doesn’t really fit.” She shrugged when he looked at her.

Of course, just when Eliot thought he was able to breathe a sigh of relief, Parker proved him wrong, just like always.

“What should I be?” she wondered aloud, as Eliot’s knife hit the plate with a loud clank. "More than a friend, but lover sounds weird, and definitely not wife.” Parker chuckled to herself, before getting a thought. "Ooh, what’s that word Hardison uses?” she asked. "That his foster brother calls his girlfriend?”

It took a moment for Eliot to catch on as he picked up his knife again and continued buttering his toast. When he realised what she meant, he almost wished he hadn’t.

“His baby mama,” he told her, before pointing his toast in her direction with force, "and no, I am not calling you that,” he confirmed with a look that was not to be argued with. “Can’t you just be Parker?” he said tiredly as he chewed on his breakfast, "‘cause I liked her.”

The words were out of his mouth before he really thought them through, but Eliot hadn’t a mind to take them back. He meant it, obviously, he did like Parker, a whole lot more than ‘liked’ actually but that was something he wasn’t really willing to think on too much right now. Last night he had spent a lot of time thinking about it and mostly to no avail. He could make no promises to Parker, hardly fix any of the awkward problems and issues that lie between them, though he had come to one tentative decision, that seemed oddly appropriate right about now...

“Really?” she checked, so long after he’d spoke, Eliot almost didn’t realise what she wanted confirmation of.

“Obviously.” He rolled his eyes as he answered her, perhaps just so he didn’t have to meet her gaze right now. "Y’know I was thinking, er, with you and your nightmares and your food issues and all,” he went on, trying to make this sound like the practical arrangement it ought to be. "I thought it might work better if you moved in here, for a while at least.”

There was no way to know how Parker might react to the idea. On the one hand it made sense for her to move in, and she seemed to like being here. When she had nightmares or questions or whatever, he could be there for her, and he never had to worry about her wandering around in the dark or being alone in a place he didn’t even know about. On the flip side of the coin, Parker was as fiercely independent as Eliot himself much of the time. She might feel weird about being essentially tied down to one location, especially a place that was not her own.

“Live here? With you?” she checked she understood what he was asking, as her eyes flitted about around the room as if she’d never seen it before.

Eliot wasn’t sure if she was now seeing it differently, weighing it up as a potential home, or if she felt as weird about looking at him when she answered as he had about looking at her when he asked!

“You can have your own room, your own space, whatever you need,” he assured her, knowing that inviting her to share not just his home but his room and his bed every night might be a step too far for her right now, and maybe for him too. "I just thought it’d be easier for you... for us, y’know?”

There was a long moments pause when Eliot felt strangely nervous. To be fair, he hadn’t exactly done a lot of moving in with chicks, or with anyone. Most women came into his life and left again after a very short time, a night, a weekend, maybe a week at best. Now he was making some kind of commitment with Parker and it did feel strange. Of course, the moving in was minor compared to the fact they were having a child together. That was forever, after all, and the moving in didn’t have to be if it didn’t work out.

“Which room?” she asked out of the blue, almost sudden enough to make Eliot jump, almost.

With a hint of a smile that he couldn’t help, Eliot stood up and took hold of Parker’s hand, leading her down the hall. A door not quite opposite his own opened up to reveal a fairly plain but tastefully decorated bedroom. Maybe it wasn’t how Parker would want it, but it was fixable, she figured. She could bring some of her stuff here and make it her own, and Eliot was right there across the hall which was the weirdest but nicest kind of comforting to her.

“Um... yes,” she said then, glancing into the room, across the hall to Eliot’s own, and then up to meet his eyes.

“Yes?” he checked, just because he wanted to make sure he heard her right and that they were on the same page here.

“Yes,” she repeated with an almost nervous smile as she walked further into the spare room. "I think... I wanna move in here?” She giggled, not really sure herself if that was what she meant to say. "Wow,” she exclaimed as she sat down on the bed. "I never lived with a guy before, not like this,” she sighed as she flopped back on the bed and stared at the plain white ceiling. "Eliot?”

He stood still where he had been all along, leaning on the door jamb, watching her.

“What?” he asked, without moving, as she scrambled to sit up some, propping herself on her elbows. "Can we paint the ceiling blue?” she asked with a giddy smile.

‘Oh, maybe this was a bad plan,’ thought Eliot , but couldn’t help responding to himself with a definite, ‘No, its not’.

After all, at least Parker was genuinely smiling right now. Lately, that seemed to matter a lot more to him than anything else.


	14. Chapter 14

It had taken a while, but it was finally starting to seem like a routine had been established amongst the Leverage team. It was somewhat removed from their old routine, but it worked for now, incorporating one pregnant thief and her still as yet undefined relationship with the hitter, plus one hacker that was having trouble dealing in general. 

Eliot wasn’t sure if it had made things better or worse since he offered Parker the chance to move in with him. Though she had agreed to the plan, the moving thing hadn’t really happened. She did sleep in the spare room he had offered to make her own, in fact there was only a couple of nights in the week or so that followed when she hadn’t slept there and that was when they crashed at the apartment / office after a late night. Still, there was no evidence to show that Parker really lived in Eliot’s home, no personal items or clothes or anything. He thought about calling her on it, but honestly he was just happy to have her close by at times of day when he would not want her walking the streets of Boston alone. Given her nightmares as well as her pregnancy, it was much safer to have her within yelling distance at night.

The team knew nothing of their hitter and thief’s sleeping arrangements and neither felt the need to share. It wasn’t a conscious decision on Parker’s part to keep a secret, she just hadn’t felt the need to divulge the information. Sophie kept on telling her how private things were supposed to stay that way and blurting things out without thinking was not done. Maybe she was actually learning at last, though it seemed unlikely, even to Parker herself.

She was the only one who knew why she hadn’t properly moved into Eliot’s apartment, and even then she felt a little hazy about it. She liked to sleep over there, liked the safety of knowing Eliot was within easy reach if she needed him. It wasn’t like she couldn’t take care of herself, like she really needed to lean on another person, because hell, she practically brought herself up on the streets with little to no help at all. The difference was that she was pregnant, she figured. Hormones made you feel stuff you wouldn’t normally feel, which is why she was filing thoughts like ‘I need Eliot’ and ‘I wanna have sex with Eliot’ away in a box in her head that was marked up ‘Pregnant Lady Hormones Talking’. Not that she found the team’s hitter unattractive and she did know from one night’s past experience that he was good in bed, but it seemed like he thought they shouldn’t be doing that again anytime soon. Parker liked to get what she wanted, but pissing off a guy liked Eliot didn’t seem like a reasonable plan.   
It wasn’t as if she were afraid of him or anything, more she was afraid of him not being there. That was scary in and of itself; feeling your world would crumble if one person walked out of it, but honestly, Parker wasn’t sure she’d cope too well with the loss of any of her family unit these days.

Parker had worried some about Hardison. She wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to deal with him liking her so much when she didn’t feel she could like him back that way. She hoped he would get over it, so they could still be friends, the best of friends, as they seemed to be before. So far he was still pretty quiet when she was around, most especially when Eliot was there too.

For two guys that had been as close as brothers, it was strange to see them struggle to even talk anymore. It made a knot in Parker’s stomach that she couldn’t shift. At first she had blamed it on the baby and then on the indigestion that she was told could come with pregnancy. Neither of these things accounted for the fact she only got said knot when she was hanging out with the team and an awkward look on even more awkward conversation occurred between Eliot and Hardison. She tried to mention it to Eliot but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and she was too afraid to mention it to her hacker friend in case he took her words all the wrong way – people tended to do that a lot, Parker noticed, even after all these years of knowing her.

At least the jobs the team went on should be normal and regular from now on, albeit Parker could not play the same part as she used to. Today she had been called upon by Nate to meet the newest client of the Leverage crew and she was practically giddy to just be involved in something not related to her having a baby for a little while.

It wasn’t as if she wanted to forget she was pregnant, or that she could even if she did want to, but something else to occupy her mind had to be a good thing, she figured. Eliot had certainly agreed, though he made a big deal about this whole thing being wrapped up in the next week. There was no way in hell he or Parker were having a reason to cancel their sonogram in one week’s time, that he was dead set on. Sophie had tried to explain, in her best gentle and British way, that these things could not always be controlled or accounted for, but it didn’t seem to make much difference to the hitter. Eliot was nothing if not determined.

Today, Parker was equally as serious about doing her job right. She had talked to Sophie about her approach to the new client and felt she had a handle on how best to act. She and Nate sat together in a booth of the bar, the rest of the team upstairs out of the way, waiting to hear what had been said when it was over. In a way, Parker wondered if she might have felt better if Sophie or Eliot were down here with her, but on second thoughts that might be too much pressure right now.

“How’re you doing there, Parker? You okay?” Nate asked her as she stared seemingly unwavering at the door, waiting for their guest.

“Sure, yeah,” she confirmed, shaking herself out of her daze. "I was just thinking, but I’m good,” she assured him with a smile.

“That’s good,” he said, returning the look as he put his hand on hers on the bar and gave it a squeeze. "Y’know you... you’re coping really well with all this.”

All Parker could do for a long moment was stare at her hand underneath the Mastermind’s own on the table top. She was still weird with the touching and all, but where the team were concerned she was getting better. This was actually nice, having Nate be sweet to her, almost fatherly, she guessed, though she had a very small frame of reference. To her, their leader was like all the best parts of every step father she ever had, including Archie, and none of the bad. Well, except for the drinking, and at least most of the time he never took out his badness on her or the team.

“Thank you,” she said as she met his eyes then, the sweet moment lost a second later as the client they had been waiting for looked around for them.

Nate waved her over, standing up to shake the woman’s hand and encouraging Parker to greet her just the same.

“Now, Ms Turner, please tell us what’s wrong,” he urged the clearly upset victim of some terrible crime as she took her seat across from them. "Oh, can I get you a drink?” he offered.

“No, thank you,” she sniffed. "Mr Ford, I’m not even sure I should be here,” she said nervously, looking back over her shoulder as if she expected she had been followed. "I have a son to think about.”

“It’s okay, Ms Turner, I promise you, nothing is going to happen to you or your little boy,” the Mastermind assured her.

Parker opened her mouth to say something helpful, to ask about the job or just offer some comfort. These were the things Sophie advised and Parker was proud to have actually remembered them, and yet she could not say a word. There was a lump in her throat that would not shift as she watched the poor woman, who said they should call her Katie, shake and bite her lip, as she spoke of danger and her poor son. The boy was only eight and Katie feared more for her child’s safety than her own in this. Parker felt sick just thinking about it, her hand going absently to her stomach beneath the table. Her child could be a little boy, or maybe a little girl. They would grow up around danger as Parker herself had. Still, at least she knew the world and was not afraid of it herself, plus there was Eliot to keep the baby safe as he or she grew up. Poor Katie had no street-smarts, no knowledge of the way the world worked behind the curtain that hid so much badness from the ‘regular’ people. It made Parker all the more grateful for her skills, for her team, and that she had chosen Eliot to sleep with that fateful night three months ago.

“We’re going to help you,” she said firmly and so out of the blue she surprised Nate to no end. "Whatever it takes. You and your little boy, you’re gonna be okay, we promise.” She smiled.

“I believe you.” Katie nodded, finding a watery smile of her own. "And believe me, I am so grateful to know there’s somebody on my side at last.”

Parker nodded her understanding of that. She knew what it was to feel so alone, and now the relief and comfort of always having a team around you. She was pretty sure none of them were going anywhere, but she knew that Eliot wouldn’t leave her; he gave her his word on that and she didn’t doubt it.

* * *

Sophie stood in the kitchen, making herself a cup of tea, and watching the back of Hardison’s head as he did what he called ‘working his sweet funky’ on the background of the new case. They had certain information before they ever spoke to the client and that was what he was compiling ready to ‘run it’ when Nate asked.

It wasn’t this that the grifter was really interested in. She knew all about Hardison’s skills with computers and such, and whilst it impressed her, she wasn’t overly enamoured at the idea of hearing about it.

No, right now, Sophie was watching Hardison from an emotional point of view. He was handling his new situation with great finesse, she thought. His heart was broken and she knew it, and whilst he would like to blame Parker, Eliot, maybe both, Sophie knew he was too good a person to really choose any of those options.

Perhaps the soon-to-be parents had acted rashly, jumping in to bed together the way they had. In some ways Eliot was to blame for Hardison’s pain since he knew of the hacker’s feelings for Parker and went ahead with what he wanted to do, whilst the blonde thief remained oblivious. Saying that, one would expect that by now Hardison would have made his move if he was going to. Now it was all too late, and that was presuming that Parker ever would’ve wanted Hardison if he offered. Sophie highly doubted it somehow, if Eliot was her type.

“I know you watchin’ me, mama,” said the hacker, so suddenly she almost physically jumped. "You wanna say something, just say,” he suggested as he peered back over his shoulder at her.

“I wasn’t staring,” she insisted as she picked up her tea and wandered over to join him, "and all I was going to say was, how are you coping, Hardison?”

“With the job?” he checked, though he suspected that had nothing to do with it at all.

“No, not with the job,” she confirmed, her eyes flitting to the door through which Eliot had disappeared some time ago.

He had said it’d been too long since he got any real training done. Between taking care of Parker and work for the team, his schedule had kinda got screwed. Slipping off to the self-built gym area off the team’s base was supposed to be something he needed to do for fitness’ sake, though Sophie suspected he was feeling as awkward as Hardison about being alone in a room together. To save an argument, he left the hacker alone to do his work, which worked out for Sophie because it gave her a chance to talk to the guy who was suffering in silence, she was sure.

“I don’t know what you’re gettin’ at, but I pro’ly don’t have time for it right now,” said Hardison flatly as he continued to stare at his laptop screen.

Sophie sighed as she came and sat down beside him, closing the lip of the computer before he had a chance to argue.

“Come on,” she urged him, as he looked sideways at her. "Hardison you can’t hide from me. I’m a grifter, I’m well practised at hiding myself behind a facade, and I always know when other people are doing it too,” she told him with a wry smile. "I know you’re hurting, and if it helps, I think you’re handling it beautifully where Parker is concerned.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged awkwardly. "Ain’t none o’ this her fault,” he said, expression hardening as his eyes flitted to the training room door.

“And it’s not entirely Eliot’s fault either, you know?” she suggested, quickly continuing before the hacker had a chance to argue. "I know sleeping with Parker wasn’t his brightest plan, not when he knew how you felt about her, but it’s not always as simple as that,” she reminded him. "You think it was easy for me with Nate, when he was married? You think I wasn’t tempted to steal him away or that he wasn’t tempted to cheat?”

“Tempted is one thing.” He shook his head. "Y’all didn’t actually do nothin’ with each other, not when he was married and all.”

“That’s true.” Sophie nodded. "But you and Parker, sweetie, you weren’t even dating. Surely if you were serious about her something would have happened by now? Maybe Eliot thought you’d given up, maybe he assumed if Parker liked him and wanted to... to be with him that way, in the heat of the moment, I doubt it ever even occurred to him what damage he might be doing.”

“Shoe on the other foot, it’d occur to me,” said Hardison sharply as he got off the stool and turned to walk away.

Sophie felt awful. She did see his point, but she could see things from both Eliot and Parker’s points of view too. She knew how much it hurt the little thief to have two men so important in her life locked in a silent war all the time. It hurt her, and the last thing she needed was more pain in her life, especially now.

“If you can’t work this out with Eliot for his sake or yours, then I’m begging you Hardison, do it for Parker,” she urged him, causing him to put down the orange soda bottle he’d been drinking from with a thud. "She won’t ever tell you, but I know she hates the rift between the two of you. You really think she needs that stress right now? On top of everything else her body is going through?”

“Hey, this ain’t all on me, mama,” he said as he whirled to look at her.

“I know that,” Sophie assured him. "but... well, just think about it please?” she urged him. "And remember, if you ever need to talk, I am always here,” she reminded him with a genuine smile.

Hardison nodded, a look of understanding and gratitude both. Sure, it was hard hearing that some of this was his fault, mostly because he knew it was true. Eliot had dogged him, and it hurt like hell, but he also knew that being childish about something that could not be undone wasn’t helping anyone. It was only going to make matters worse, and Sophie was right about Parker too, she didn’t need the extra stress, especially right now.

As if appearing because she had been mentioned or thought of, the door opened then and Parker strolled in with Nate on her heels. Their meeting with the client was done, and they were ready to roll on their knew job. At least that would bring a hint of normalcy to the team, Sophie hoped, though somehow she doubted anything was ever going to be quite the same again.


	15. Chapter 15

There was always going to be an argument and the team had seen it coming from a mile away. The moment they heard the fight over the comms, the crack of bone and the squish of blood, they knew there was going to be trouble after. Eliot was the team’s hitter, of course he was going to get into fights, it was what he did. Usually if he won he wasn’t too bothered about the consequences and the rest of the crew didn’t fuss because he shied away from that. He took the blows so they didn’t have to, it was his job and he was proud of the fact he could keep them all safe. Of course, on this particular job he had hoped to keep them safe without screwing up his looks too much.

“The frickin’ sonogram is tomorrow!” Parker yelled crossly as she paced up and down the apartment between the vid-screen and the desks. "Why did you have to go and get hit in the face today?”

“Geez, I’m sorry, Parker,” said Eliot, sarcasm fully evident as he pulled the ice-pack off his cheek and spoke around a swollen lip. "Next time some goon throws a punch at me, I’ll ask him real nice if he could not aim at my face ‘cause I got respectable places to be seen tomorrow!”

His temper was already fraying at the edges. Nate and Sophie could both see he was fighting hard to keep it under control just so he didn’t lose it with Parker and upset her. It couldn’t be easy, not when he was in so much pain, and probably equally as mad as his pregnant blonde thief that this happened today of all days.

“So, you go to the sonogram with a black eye, so what?” shrugged Hardison, though he never looked up from the computer screen. "You can’t make some excuse for that?”

“I think the black eye would be the least of our problems,” said Nate as he literally stood between the two, blocking the line of sight between hacker and hitter. "I can’t see you walking too well with that limp,” he told Eliot, "and from the way you’re holding yourself, I’m guessing broken ribs?”

“Couple are cracked maybe,” the hitter admitted, gratefully accepting another ice-pack that Sophie swiftly brought for him. "Doesn’t mean I can’t get to the damn doctor’s office, Nate. This is important.”

“We understand that, Eliot,” the grifter said kindly as she took a seat beside him, "but think about it. How will it look to the doctor, to the authorities, if you go in this state?”

“It’ll be fine,” the hitter ground out, though in reality he knew it wasn’t at all.

They had a point, all of them. He shouldn’t go to the sonogram appointment looking like a punch-bag and there were few excuses he could give that would cover such injuries. It would be obvious to anyone, least of all a Doctor, that he’d been in a fight, and that wasn’t going to look good for a prospective parent. It might make for unwanted attention that people like them could do without at the best of times.

“Well, can’t we re-schedule?” asked Parker desperately, not loving that this was getting messed up.

She liked things to go just how she planned, and usually had plenty of back ups to fall onto if they didn’t. When it came to this pregnancy, she didn’t know enough about what was happening and what she was doing to have more than one basic plan. Eliot had been her back up this whole time, and now he was the problem that needed a contingency in place. She so had not seen this coming.

“That might actually attract as much attention as Eliot’s... state, right now,” said Nate thoughtfully. "With appointments for pregnancies and kids, it pays to go when you said you’d go and not mess them around too much,” he told the non-couple. "It can arouse suspicion for the regular people, and given our line of work...”

Everyone knew he had a point, and he ought to know the score when it came to kids since he was the only one amongst the team to have had one so far. The fact he was having to talk about poor Sam and doctors in the same sentence just made everyone else all the more willing to get off the subject already.

“Fine, I won’t go,” said Eliot, knowing he had little or no choice. "but...”

“I’m not going alone!” Parker interrupted frantically, taking the words right out of her partner’s mouth apparently.

“Oh, sweetie, of course not,” said Sophie as she went over to her and put a careful arm around her shoulders. "We would never make you do that if you didn’t want to,” she insisted. "I’ll come with you,” she promised, "if that would help?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Parker shrugged, not particularly meaning to push Sophie’s arm away or seem ungrateful about her offer but managing to do both in unison as she wandered away into the kitchen.

Eliot watched her go, feeling sick inside, as Nate moved swiftly on to the next topic, wrapping up from their latest job. It was okay for him, he could skim over this stuff and not worry too much about it. It wasn’t his kid, his weird non-relationship that was getting screwed over. Eliot would never say for a moment that none of the team really cared about Parker or her unborn child, but they still weren’t in the middle of this like he was. They could walk away, forget about it. He could never and would never do that.

Poor Parker. She was trying her best to deal with everything that was happening, the changes to her body and the alterations she must make in her life to accommodate first a pregnancy and then a child that would be born in a little under six months now. It had to be hard on any woman to cope with all this, and Parker was far from the average female.

Following her into the kitchen, Eliot watched Parker hunt down the nearest box of sugar-filled cereal and stick her hand right in there. Usually he would warn her against the pitfalls of eating such crap, but not now. She wanted comfort food; well, who was he to stop her? It was because of him she was upset in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her back, so suddenly she might’ve jumped if she was anybody else, anyone who didn’t have inhuman reflexes and awareness.

“I know,” she replied around a mouthful of cereal.

Turning to look at him, she wore a smile that they both knew was forced. Somehow, that killed Eliot more than if she had just gone ahead and cried all over him.

* * *

Parker was grateful to Sophie for offering to go with her to her sonogram appointment, but she still wished it was Eliot there with her instead. After all, this was his baby, and whilst Sophie was a good friend and would doubtless insist on being called Auntie Sophie when the little one came along, it wasn’t the same and just didn’t seem fair to Parker, not to her or to Eliot.

They sat in the waiting room with Sophie gushing over other expectant mothers, whilst Parker stared unseeing at the opposite wall. This wasn’t fun, not that she really expected it to be, but with Eliot here it might’ve been. They could share everything, the good stuff and the bad scary thoughts they got about becoming parents. She sighed heavily and even Sophie noticed.

“You okay, Parker?” she checked. "You know you don’t have to be nervous or anything, it’s all going to be fine,” she assured her, putting a hand to her arm.

“I know, I’m good.” She forced a smile. "I just kinda wish...”

She didn’t get a chance to say anymore as her name was called and in she went to the doctor’s room with Sophie right behind her.

It didn’t seem to occur to the grifter that Parker might be using her real name for this, she barely batted an eye, and instead introduced herself as a good friend and work colleague. Of course, when Dr Thomas started asking what kind of work they did, it was necessary to quickly change the subject, which thankfully Sophie was an expert at doing.

Parker laid back on the exam table, parted her clothes, and shuddered involuntarily when cold gel was spread across her middle. She was about to see her baby, and yet could barely raise a smile about it. She blamed her weird hormones, which she was blaming for pretty much everything lately, and tried to look pleased if only for Sophie’s sake. The grifter seemed way more excited about all this than she should be, but then the thought occurred that perhaps on some level Sophie was jealous. Maybe she wanted a baby too.

“Okay, now,” Dr Thomas said as he stared at the screen and moved the paddle back and forth across Parker’s belly. "If we just...”

The door bursting open at that point startled everyone, and the doctor was annoyed enough that he might’ve yelled about the intrusion if it weren’t a certain hitter framed in the doorway. Nobody was dumb enough to argue with a guy built like Eliot was, and besides, the state of him was all Dr Thomas was really seeing.

“Eliot!” the delight in Parker’s voice at the sight of her unborn baby’s father was obvious to all, as she attempted to get off the table and go to him.

The doctor advised against it, glad when Eliot was the one to move so that Parker would stop trying.

“What? You thought I’d miss this?” he told her with a lop-sided smirk as Sophie vacated her seat and let him take it. "Takes more than some muggers to stop me, darlin’,” he told her pointedly, eyes drifting to the doctor a moment later.

“I was going to ask,” he admitted as he looked the guy over. "They really did a number on you, didn’t they? I hope you’ve been to a hospital...”

“I’m all fixed up, no problems, Doc, but thanks for askin’,” he told the man with a smile, as he picked up Parker’s hand in both of his without even thinking and kissed it.

The grin on the little thief’s face was a mile wide, and it brought tears to Sophie’s eyes as she looked back at the pair from the doorway. Once again the doctor placed the paddle on Parker’s belly and brought a picture into focus on the screen as the grifter left and Nate unexpectedly closed the door behind her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, as one fat tear escaped down her cheek.

“Someone had to drive Eliot,” the mastermind shrugged, reaching out to wipe away the tear she had shed. "Between the possible concussion and the pain meds, there was no way we were letting him behind the wheel.”

Sophie nodded in understanding as her eyes drifted back to the door behind which her two friends were, together as they ought to be in such a moment. The mugging thing was a reasonable idea, no doubt Hardison would fake a record at the local hospital in case Dr Thomas checked into it.

All the thoughts in Sophie’s head stirred up into a frenzy and she just bawled like a child then, glad of the comfort when Nate pulled her into is arms and let her sob into his shoulder. The strangest mixture of joy for her dear friends and longing for something she never had and probably never would set her off, and for a while nothing was going to stop her.

Nate was happy to walk her out of the building and to the car. Hospitals were hard enough, but thinking too much about sonograms and pregnancy related things was just as much of a knife in his heart even now.

Back in the doctor’s room, Eliot felt as if he might just burst into tears too, though he didn’t allow it to happen. There before him on a screen, a blobby kind of a picture that might’ve looked like nothing to anyone else, but he knew it was a baby, his son or daughter to be. It was an incredible moment and he was so very glad he hadn’t let it go by without him.

“It looks weird,” Parker whispered to him, though of course the doctor heard in the silent room. "Is it supposed to look like that?”

“Yes, it is,” the doctor confirmed. "See, here’s baby’s head, an arm, and a leg...”

“Ooh, it’s a boy,” she pointed then, as Eliot rolled his eyes.

“That’s actually the umbilical cord,” Dr Thomas told her with a smile, "but a lot of people make that mistake,” he assured her. "Would you like to know the sex of the baby?” he asked them then.

Parker looked at Eliot with an expression akin to panic. She clearly wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say, perhaps concerned he wouldn’t agree with any choice she made even.

“I don’t care,” the hitter shrugged. "Might be nicer to have a surprise. Everything else about this ride has been so far.” He smiled.

“Sometimes I like surprises.” Parker nodded, grinning like her face would split in two.

Something suggested she wasn’t just talking about the baby anymore.


	16. Chapter 16

It was ridiculous and Eliot knew it, but he couldn’t help himself. For fully half an hour he’d been sat there in his armchair staring at the sonogram picture of the baby. Sure, it didn’t look much like a child yet, just a vague greyish blobby thing, but it didn’t matter. That was his son or daughter, a child made out of him and Parker. After weeks of getting used to the idea of the two of them being parents to this baby, occasionally the realisation of it all still floored the hitter, easier than any punch ever had.

What shocked him more than the prospect of being a father was still how comfortable he felt about it, and how strangely comfortable he felt about Parker these days. As much as he had forced himself to go to that Doctor’s office today to attend the sonogram for himself because he wanted to be there, he also did it for Parker. She hated the idea of going alone and though she was grateful for Sophie’s offer to attend, Eliot still knew he had disappointed her. Somehow, hurting her, even unintentionally, tore at his insides these days. He couldn’t stand to see her upset, not for anything in the world, and the more he thought on it, the more Eliot came to realise that had been the case from almost the beginning.

It was true that the prospect of being parents to the same child had thrown him and Parker closer than they ever might have been otherwise, their one night of passion notwithstanding, but he had always cared about her. It was almost scary for Eliot to realise just how much he did care, just how very much Parker meant to him. It was growing each week, each day somehow, and at this point he was seriously starting to consider a future in which they were not just mismatched parents to the same baby, but a couple in all senses of the word.

It seemed a ridiculous concept to Eliot to be considering settling down with any woman. The way he was, his character and his manner, not to mention his job, none of it screamed happy husband material, but then Parker wasn’t exactly the average wife type either. Neither of them felt as if they were cut out to be parents but they were doing their best to adjust and were both starting to believe they’d be okay. No challenge could be tougher than the prospect of parenthood, surely, so perhaps it wasn’t such a stretch to think they could be a faithful happy couple too.

“You’re crazier than she is,” Eliot muttered to himself crossly as he rose carefully from his seat and moved to prop the sonogram picture on the mantle.

Every muscle still screamed from the fight before, cuts pulling as if to want to gape open and bleed, bruises throbbing all over. A glance at the clock confirmed what his body was already telling him, and Eliot put one arm carefully around his own rib cage as he shuffled some towards the kitchen where he’d left the pill bottle on the counter.

The thought occurred, as he tipped out a couple of painkillers and got himself a glass of water, that getting into this state was more or less a no go when the baby came. He wasn’t exactly going to be much use to a kid or to Parker if he could barely walk or even breathe without wincing,

Thankfully, there wasn’t much time to dwell on such thoughts as the front door came swinging open with a crash. Eliot was in a fighting stance in a second, despite the pain, but let it go within another second as he first remembered Parker had a key now and second heard her voice as she grumbled and complained.

“Dammnit!” she was cursing, and Eliot frowned as he headed for the door to see what on Earth was going on.

“Parker, what the hell are you doin’?” he demanded to know as she flung the door closed behind her, dropping two bags onto the floor simultaneously. "Are those heavy? Because I told you about lifting and carrying...” he started to tell her off, waving an angry finger her way.

Parker only rolled her eyes and sighed,

“Save the angry Dad face for your actual kid,” she advised. "They’re not that heavy, I just tripped is all,” she explained as she moved to pick the bags up again.

Eliot moved to slap her hands away from the handles and stop her. It was worrying enough that his precious thief had managed to trip over, nevermind carry bags when she was pregnant. Perhaps it was more the shock of realising he had just referred to Parker as ‘his’ than anything else that led to Eliot thinking it was a good plan to try and pick up her bags himself. As if his arm and ribs hadn’t hurt enough before, he ceased to breathe when he lifted the medium-weight of the two bags she brought with him and immediately put them down again just two steps further down the hall.

“See, that’s why I didn’t ask for help,” said Parker easily as she watched him struggle.

She probably should’ve known it’d make him mad, but if she hadn’t already realised Eliot made it totally clear then when he turned angry eyes upon her and growled.

“I can do it,” he told her crossly. "Tomorrow, I can do it tomorrow,” he amended off her look of disbelief. "What are in those anyway?” he asked as he moved to sit down heavily in his armchair, really wishing he hadn’t even moved right now - the painkillers hadn’t kicked in yet.

“Stuff,” shrugged Parker as she eyed her own bags and thought better of moving them herself, since it really wasn’t worth the argument. "Essentials, y’know?” she elaborated only slightly as she flopped bodily onto the couch across from him. "You did say I could move in, right?”

Eliot felt like he was getting a headache to match all the other pain he was in. Parker rarely if ever made sense and he thought he was used to that, but once again she came around here and threw him for a loop one more time. Of course he remembered inviting her to move in, but he also recalled her saying yes and then never really following through. Apart from sleeping over most nights, she showed no evidence of actually wanting to be at his apartment at any other time, until now apparently.

“Parker, I told you a couple of weeks ago you could move in, I just... I figured you changed your mind is all,” he told her, trying not to sound bothered or anything.

It wasn’t as if it ought to matter to him whether she wanted to be with him 24/7 in his apartment or anything. It was hardly a manly stance to take, whining and complaining, or taking on a passive-aggressive attitude towards relationship commitment.

“No, my mind is still the same.” She smiled, now hanging the wrong way up in her seat and looking at him upside down.

“That ain’t as comforting as it ought to be.” Eliot rolled his eyes at her behaviour, spinning his finger in a gesture that told her to sit up properly already.

She did as she was asked to, only because it had just now occurred to her maybe the baby didn’t like defying gravity. She would teach him or her the wonders of such things after he/she was born, but for safety purposes it was probably best not to start pre-birth, she figured.

“You don’t look so good.” She frowned as she righted herself and stared across at Eliot.

“Well, thank you, darlin’, that’s very sweet of you to say,” he drawled, his eyes only half open as he leant his head back against the cushions.

It had been a very long day, after several other long and trying days. He felt like hell and probably looked worse. He didn’t blame Parker for saying what she thought, she really wouldn’t be her if she didn’t.

“We should go to bed,” she said then, making Eliot’s eyes shoot open, a hundred and one answers to that rising in his throat.

For fear of messing up but equally as much of having her accept any offer he made when he was hardly fit to let it happen, Eliot swallowed down every inappropriate answer that came to mind and said nothing. Parker would elaborate on what she meant eventually, given half the chance. That was the problem with most people, himself included in the past. They didn’t understand Parker and her non-sequitars, but most of the time if you gave her a chance to explain where she was coming from she did make sense... sometimes.

“You need to sleep, I need to sleep,” she recapped, yawning as if to prove the point. "So we should go to bed,” she said simply as she got to her feet. "Probably a good thing I’m here to watch out for you. With the crack to the head and everything you could wake up dead in the morning if we’re not careful.”

Eliot was going to correct her on her completely impossible sentence but honestly couldn’t be bothered. It took all his energy just to get up out of the chair and make his peace with the fact that Parker had apparently now decided she was moving in, tonight, all of a sudden, without warning, and she was sharing his bed whether he liked it or not. Truth be told, he did kind of like it, but probably would’ve appreciated it a whole lot more if he felt like doing more than just sleeping when he got there.

“You’re crazy, you know that right?” he told her, though he was smiling as he did so and his arm wrapped around her shoulders.

Whether she was supporting him or he was letting her lean his way wasn’t entirely clear as they walked away to the bedroom.

“Yeah, you tell me that a lot.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. "But it’s fine, ‘cause I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one,” she told him with a grin.

Honestly, Eliot couldn’t find a way to argue the point right now.

* * *

Sophie didn’t say anything when Eliot and Parker arrived to the next team meeting together, though she shared a significant look with Nate behind their backs. It wasn’t only their being here together at the same moment that prompted the look of ‘I told you so’, more that this seemed to be the proof the grifter had been looking for in a previous argument with her would-be other half.

Something was going on with Eliot and Parker, of that Sophie was entirely certain. Obviously they were having a baby together, but she really didn’t believe for a moment that what existed between them was purely platonic anyway. They hardly would have slept together that one time if they weren’t at least attracted to each other in a physical sense, and since finding out Parker was pregnant Eliot had been awfully protective and kind to her. Of course that kind of behaviour was to be expected, but never really from the team’s hitter. He could be nice enough and he was certainly protective of his team, but this was different, it was more.

Nate had tried to tell her she was seeing things that weren’t there. Having a baby with someone, that was always going to change a relationship, but he didn’t see anything significant occurring between his hitter and his thief. They were closer, in a sense, but he put that down to their new connection via the unborn child. He couldn’t really see a romance happening between two people like them, or between them and anyone else either, so he said. Sophie scoffed and told him he was just a stupid blind man, which hadn’t bothered the mastermind in the slightest. He truly believed Eliot and Parker had slept together through a combination of adrenaline and boredom, and that their partnership now was purely built on a need to be on friendly terms to raise their child when he or she came along, nothing more or less than that. Sophie thought he was completely wrong, and seemed to have written a fairytale complete with happily ever after ending in her head. The look on her face when the possible couple strolled into the apartment together proved she felt her point had been made, and coincidence or other similar excuses would not be accepted.

“What?” asked Parker, clearly catching the series of looks that passed between grifter and mastermind.

That got both Eliot and Hardison’s attention too, and though Sophie tried to pretend nothing was happening, it was clear no-one believed her. Parker looked eerily like the father of her child when she folded her arms across her chest and semi-glared in the grifter’s direction.

“Something is weird,” she said seriously, clearly not happy to do or talk about anything else until an explanation was given.

“Sweetie, it’s nothing,” Sophie assured her with a smile. "Nate and I were just having this silly talk about something and...”

“About us?” Eliot guessed from the way she was nervously glancing between them. "You’re not the only one who can read people, Soph,” he reminded her, getting back up off the couch and going to stand by Parker. "What’s goin’ on?”

Nate sighed a heavy sigh, rubbing his hand over his face. This was just going to make more trouble than it was worth, but apparently it was too late to turn back now.

“Sophie and I were discussing the, er... the nature of your relationship,” he said awkwardly, not sure what he expected either Eliot or Parker’s reaction to be but not liking any of the options that came to mind at all.

“Oh,” said Parker, as Eliot’s lip twitched with a few things he wanted to say and others he didn’t. "Well, I live at Eliot’s place now, but we haven’t had sex since we made this bun in my oven,” she said succinctly as ever, before turning away and flopping down into the nearest armchair. "Do we have potato chips?”

Her question went unaswered as the remaining members of the team all shared significant and awkward looks. It was when Eliot glanced towards Hardison that he knew they weren’t getting past this without a serious talk. To be fair, it was long overdue. There had been a rift between hitter and hacker since Parker’s pregnancy was originally revealed, the so-called brotherhood between them having broken down in seconds and no attempts had really been made to rebuild yet. Now was as good a time as any, Eliot decided, as Hardison barely glanced up from his computer screen and refused to meet the hitter’s eyes even as he stared his way.

“Hey, Hardison,” he said, making the other guy look at last. "We gotta talk, man,” he told him, with an expression that said there was no room for an argument.

When Eliot walked off into a side room, it was implied that the hacker should follow. Remembering what Sophie had said about making this easier on Parker, Hardison glanced at the blonde thief and found her the smallest of smiles, before getting up off his ass and following Eliot through to the training room. He closed the door behind himself and stood firm and tall with his arms crossed, not quite sure what to expect.

“You wanted to talk, man. Talk to me,” he gestured for Eliot to start and yet the hitter remained silent a few moments more.

He looked strangely awkward, his thumbs in his pockets and his eyes not quite meeting the hacker’s own. Whatever he wanted to say was tough on him, and not much was difficult for a guy like Eliot. Of course, he really was more of an action man than one for talking, but sometimes you had to do what you had to do.

“Look, I know me and Parker... I know it’s tough on you ‘cause of the way you feel about her,” Eliot began eventually. "Trust me, when this whole thing started, the team and everything, you know I didn’t think you really stood a chance but I never, ever thought I’d be the one steppin’ on your toes, you gotta know that.”

“I know.” Hardison nodded, believing at least that much was true. "And I know that if she chose you and all, that’s her decision. Ain’t exactly much I can do to get in the way of folks who wanna be together, ‘specially when there’s a kid on the way and all,” he admitted, looking at the floor more than the guy he was talking to.

They weren’t good at this. Men in general were not usually great communicators and these two had always been better with their fists and a computer respectively, rather than real and serious words. Unfortunately, there was no other way to figure this thing out but to talk about it, and they were both doing their best to remain reasonable throughout, if for no other reason then for Parker’s sake.

“I ain’t apologising anymore, Hardison,” the hitter told him with a definite shake of his head. "I did that already, and it’s done. I’m not gonna keep on feeling guilty ‘cause I love a woman who loves me back.”

It was the L word that really got the hacker’s attention more than anything else. Sure, he knew his team mates were getting pretty tight, that they at least found each other attractive another to sleep together that one time. Still, when they had this conversation before, Eliot had assured Hardison there was nothing real between him and Parker. Now everything had clearly changed, since he was pretty sure he would’ve spotted if he was lying the first time.

“Then I got one thing to say here,” said the hacker at length. "You love her, then you take damn good care of her, brah, ‘cause if you don’t, hitter or not, I will kick yo’ ass to the moon, you got that?”

Eliot couldn’t help but smile at that. At the end of the day they wanted the same thing here, for Parker to be safe and happy. If they agreed on nothing else, he was sure that would always be true. Plus it amused the hell out of him to imagine a fight between himself and the hacker. It was true enough that Hardison had some skills, but ‘some’ was the operative word, and Eliot had a whole lot more, plus the strength and speed. That aside, he appreciated the sentiment of what the guy had said.

“I screw up, man, I’m counting on you to be there,” he said seriously, "but it’s not something I plan on doin’,” he confirmed. "So, are we cool?” he checked, holding out a hand for Hardison to shake.

The hacker regarded the extended hand with some apprehension, not because he was afraid, more that he didn’t want to make any promises that he couldn’t keep. At length he reached out to shake Eliot’s hand.

“We cool, man,” he assured him, "but it ain’t the same, Eliot. I can’t just go back to us bein’ bros like before and everything being okay, ‘cause it ain’t that easy.”

“I know.” Eliot nodded. "But I kinda got used to you havin’ my back,” he admitted, something nobody would ever have expected him to say.

In a fight, he didn’t need an ally, and in life in general he ensured he didn’t require too much in the way of friends. Still, Eliot meant what he said, he liked having a guy around he could rely on in a crisis, that relied on him to. ‘Bro’ wasn’t just slang with them, they had been like brothers. Whether they could get back to that in time, the jury was still out, but they’d made a start at patching up their fractured friendship, and that would do for now.


	17. Chapter 17

Things were definitely getting better in the world of Parker. Everything had kind of been a rollercoaster since she found out she was pregnant. She coped pretty well, considering the magnitude of what was happening, but then over the years of her life, she had to learn to deal with all kinds of crap that came flying her way.

She wondered if she lost a little resilience to sudden change and panic from being part of the Leverage team. Starting to rely on people was hard, especially when there was no way to know if they’d still be there tomorrow. She was getting to a point where she felt comfortable, truly and completely content, though mostly that seemed to be with Eliot more than anyone else.

The relationship between them was undefined at best, but Parker tried not to think about it too much. They were unconventional in every possible way already, she figured one more wouldn’t hurt. Whilst ‘normal’ people dated, fell in love, and then talked about having kids, quite often with marriage as well, she and Eliot had leapt into bed, made the baby, and then gotten as close as some lovers might.

She lived permanently at his apartment now, and had noticed he really seemed strangely comfortable with that. Before their night together, nobody was even supposed to know where he lived and now she was in the same few rooms as him, sometimes sleeping in the same bed. Parker might’ve thought that was strange if not for the fact she was known to be equally as secretive usually, and needing of her own space.

Eliot slept with her often, though when she said slept that was exactly what she meant. They hadn’t had sex, not once since that first night that got her pregnant. She didn’t wonder as to why anymore, she just figured he didn’t want to and left it at that. It seemed strange since they had kissed several times, made out more than once, but he never showed interest in actually doing it with her.

Parker had checked the pregnancy book. She vaguely wondered if pregnant women weren’t allowed to have sex, if it hurt or damaged the baby or something. Apparently that wasn’t what it was, but still she never asked Eliot for the real reason. It wasn’t Parker’s usual way. She had a habit of blurting out any question she wanted the answer to without a moments pause, but this was different. She wondered if she was changing because of her pregnancy or if living with someone was making her a little less thoughtless in her behaviour. Whatever the reason, she kept her mouth shut about the sex thing, not wanting to rock the boat as it were.

Things were getting better, and that meant with the team too, mostly with Hardison. He seemed so mad when Parker announced she was pregnant and she just didn’t understand why. When Eliot had said it was because the hacker had feelings for her, Parker wasn’t really sure what to do with that. Sure, she knew he liked her, she liked him too, but not that way. They’d flirted some quite a while ago, but the making out was only ever cover for cons, and she couldn’t ever imagine having sex with him or anything, not like she could with Eliot.

Whatever the issue, Hardison just couldn’t find a way to get along with Eliot for the longest time, and Parker couldn’t help but blame herself for that. Neither of the guys talked to her about it, but contrary to popular belief, she wasn’t so completely blind to people’s feelings and all. She knew things were bad between them because she was pregnant and closer to Eliot now. She wanted to make an effort to be friendly with Hardison, have him be her BFF as she always figured he wanted, but he shied away from her and that hurt. She tried not to show it, because Parker never did like to give away too much by being open with her emotions, but it did pain her.

It was different again now. She and Hardison had started talking more again. He made jokes to her on the comms and smiled when she was around. Even he and Eliot were starting to get along a little better. It wasn’t like before when they acted like brothers, but they seemed to be okay with each other, they didn’t hate each other and that was what mattered most to Parker. She wanted her little family unit to all get along, no matter how strange or screwed up the group might seem to anyone else.

They operated like a twisted kind of family. Sophie was certainly taking on the Mom role where Parker was concerned, in fact Eliot had a habit of affectionately referring to the grifter as ‘mother hen’ when she started clucking and fussing. She took the thief shopping for new clothes as Parker’s belly expanded into her fifth month of pregnancy. All her close fitting gear just didn’t work anymore, and Sophie was always up for an excuse to shop. Of course, it took a while to convince Parker that paying for items at the store could be as much fun as lifting them. Even then she had come home with a few trinkets and no proof of purchase. She only told Eliot about those and he couldn’t find a way to be mad at her about it, especially since one of those things was for him.

If Sophie was Mom, then Nate was definitely nervous grandfather to be. He really didn’t seem to know how to handle Parker’s pregnancy unless the grifter gave him points and leads to follow. Eliot wondered if it was just his pseudo-daughter going through something so unlikely that had him reeling, or if this whole thing was bringing back too many memories of the past. The last pregnant woman he’d been close to would’ve been Maggie, carrying his son, Sam, who had been lost far too soon. That had to hurt, and Eliot did his best not to overplay the proud father-to-be bit in front of him. Honestly though, he was as good as his word and better when it came to being there for the hitter who would usually deny he needed any assistance with anything ever. Little pieces of advice, a few words to say he knew he could do this, however crazy it got, it meant an awful lot to Eliot.

He was coping better with Parker these days. She still had mood swings that a regular person would struggle to keep up with, after all Parker’s usual manner plus pregnant lady hormones was always going to be a tough combination. Thankfully though, her morning sickness had passed, and the food cravings didn’t seem as weird right now. That could rear its head again later, so he’d read in the book, but for now things were cool.

Their relationship was mostly undefined, but honestly, not having to put a label on it right now was better. Eliot thought he would hate having to live with another person. He’d been alone since he left the family home too many years ago, never had anyone stay with him longer than a night, and yet Parker’s presence in the apartment didn’t bother him at all. Honestly, he missed her when she wasn’t there, though he didn’t tell her that, of course. Sharing a bed with her was strange, to say the least. He really didn’t sleep alongside women without having the sex first, not until Parker. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t be together that way if they wanted to, there was no risk left they hadn’t already taken anyway, but Eliot feared screwing things up again.

The two of them had finally found a happy medium, somewhere between being friends and being soon-to-be parents. It didn’t have a name, but they were coping with it just fine. It was comfortable, in the strangest way, and most of the time the two of them found themselves operating as one person, anticipating what the other was going to do or say, dealing with whatever came along and liking the way everything turned out.

That didn’t mean Eliot didn’t look at Parker sometimes and just wanna kiss the hell out of her. There were nights and mornings he woke with her in his arms, wondering idly about what might happen if he made some kind of move. Then she’d shift against him, making her bump more obvious, or the light would catch on that place where the baby resided, reminding him without question why they were really here, and all they stood to lose. Whilst things worked between them it was best to leave it be. Sex confused things and far too easily, it was how they’d landed up here in the first place and it wasn’t worth screwing it up all over again just when life was okay.

Of course, it was home life that functioned okay, and work was another story. The team were doing their best to cope, but ultimately they were one woman down. Nobody could do Parker’s job, hell, it had been hard enough to cope covering for Sophie when she was away and they all had some limited experience of grifting. Breaking locks, cracking safes, rappelling, the only expert they had in these things was Parker, and nobody (including the pregnant woman herself) was willing to have her in the line of fire. It made things harder, in all kinds of ways, but Nate handled it the best he could, trying to concentrate on jobs they could pull without her or with her in a different role. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and yet nobody was willing to talk about bringing in any kind of replacement for fear of what it would do to Parker.

Imagine everybody’s surprise then when the team arrived in Nate’s apartment from the bar to find a guest sat easily on the couch watching TV.

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Nate as he reeled back in the doorway, almost causing a domino effect with the rest of his team.

“How’d he get in?” asked Eliot right after, checking the door for signs it’d been messed with.

Their questions went unanswered as Parker manoeuvred her way into the apartment through the crowd of four and moved to greet the guest that perhaps wasn’t quite so uninvited.

“Wow, now I see why you asked me to come here,” said Apollo with evident surprise as he observed the bump that was Parker’s pregnant belly. "How’d that happen?”

“The usual way. With sex,” said the blonde thief, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, not important to why you’re here,” she said, waving it all away as she turned and faced the team. "Guys, you remember Apollo.” She smiled easily. "He’s going to help you out, since I can’t, and I know he was on the bad team for a while but it’s all cool now, trust me.”

“Darlin’ we don’t need...”

“Yes, we do,” Parker cut the hitter off before he ever had a real chance to protest. "Eliot, it doesn’t work,” she told him. "You all know it doesn’t,” she said as her eyes travelled around the rest of the group, none of whom would meet her gaze right now. "Okay, you’re all taking risks; Eliot has been beat up way more often, Hardison almost got blown up inside Lucille just last week, and Nate was laughably slow with the lock picking at that house in LA last month,” she rattled off. "I mean, forty eight seconds? Seriously?” she said, looking appalled.

The Mastermind was a little stung at that, not least because Apollo was sniggering behind his hand too. He’d tried his best, damn it! Still he didn’t say a word. In fact it was Sophie who spoke next, stepping forward and practically circling Apollo like a jungle cat.

“Last time we saw you, you were working for Stark,” she recalled, "with that wanker they call Chaos”

“That was a very long time ago, and purely a one job deal.” The thief shrugged, uncaring about her attitude. "From what was said, you worked with Stark too,” he reminded her, his eyes following her as she continued walking. "As for Colin Mason, you know he tried to take me out too.”

“Seriously?” checked Eliot, looking surprised by that.

“That asshole tried to have you whacked too?” asked Hardison out-right.

“Three times now,” Apollo confirmed, pushing his hands into his pockets as an amused grin came to his face despite the subject matter. "He’s not very good at it.”

Nate wasn’t particularly bothered or entirely listening to this thief anymore, rather he was concentrating on his own. Parker looked shockingly comfortable with the idea of being replaced and yet before she had been so upset. It seemed like a strange moment of change, but then so much had altered the past few weeks and months.

“Er, Parker, are you sure you want us to... I mean, you’re still part of the team,” he tried to tell her.

“I know.” She smiled genuinely. "And it’s fine. Apollo is here for temporary help when we need him, that’s all,” she insisted. "I called him so I’m cool with it, okay?”

Eliot smiled then. Sure, he could be a little put out that Parker never talked to him about this before calling up Apollo and inviting him to join the team, but he couldn’t be that petty. She was being so adult, so sensible about this, it was quite an achievement.

“Hey, man,” he said, stepping towards the new guy with an out-stretched hand. "Welcome to the team,” he greeted him as they shook on it.

It was a couple of hours later when Parker headed for the kitchen to find snacks that Eliot got the chance to follow and get a moment alone with her.

“Hey, that was a good idea, calling Apollo,” he told her, away from the prying ears of his team-mates. "If you trust him, I guess we can.” He shrugged.

“We can trust him,” she nodded as she peered into one cupboard then the next, finding that although she was hungry nothing appealed right now, not even cereal. "He owes me anyway.” She smiled then, and off Eliot’s inquisitive look added. "Long story.”

He let it go, only because he knew pressing her on past matters would give her license to do the same. Everybody was allowed a few secrets, especially people like them with whom a lot of things were better left unsaid.

“Had to hurt, lettin’ him come in and take your place, even for a while,” he said then, testing the waters in a way.

Eliot was surprised that Parker would call for a back-up thief when she had gotten so upset before about being potentially replaced and pushed out of her crew. Maybe now was different, maybe by now she understood she couldn’t ever be left behind by this family.

“It’s not forever.” She shrugged like it was no big deal, but Eliot still knew that it was.

When she turned to look his way he was smiling in that soft genuine way that he hardly ever used with anyone else and that never failed to make Parker grin back.

“How ‘bout I make you some real food?” he offered, moving her hands away and closing up the cupboard doors. "Anything you want,” he offered, as he kissed her cheek and then moved towards the fridge to see if they had enough milk and butter and other essentials he might need for whatever she wanted him to cook.

Parker smiled widely as her eyes followed his movement and was barely aware of the sigh escaping her lips as she did so. She had worried Eliot might be mad about her calling Apollo without telling him, that he wouldn’t want to trust the alternate thief or something. This was so much nicer than she ever could’ve imagined.

“What do we want to eat, bubba?” she asked looking down, one hand on her bump. "Ooh, pancakes! Good idea!”


	18. Chapter 18

“Seriously? Another appointment?” Parker huffed as Eliot encouraged her into her jacket already. "It’s like every other day!”

“It’s once a month, Parker.” The hitter rolled his eyes at her, only to have her echo his words in a dumb squeaky voice that sounded nothing like him.

She was so childish and silly about things sometimes, but honestly, he was just glad she was being more like the Parker he used to know. It was strange, she had been through a really hormonal phase and a weird food craving phase, but just lately things seemed to be almost normal again. Maybe normal wasn’t the right word, after all this was Parker and crazy was practically her middle name, but she was more like she used to be. If not for the bump that was really starting to show through any tighter clothing she wore now, you might not guess she was pregnant at all.

“It gets better, sweetheart,” he told her with a smirk he couldn’t help. "You hit third trimester and it’s every other week. Plus if bubba stays in there past your due date, we’re looking at every couple of days”

Parker’s eyes went comically wide at that information. Clearly she needed to be reading ahead a little more in that baby book they had. Eliot was getting all beyond her with his pregnancy knowledge, and that wouldn’t do at all.

“Listen to me, kid,” she told her swelling belly as they walked out the door. "We get to near your due date, you get out of there, okay?” she urged the child that of course would take no notice of a word she was saying.

Eliot couldn’t be bothered to tell her, it really wasn’t worth it. They head down to the truck without further incident and were halfway to the Doctor’s office before Parker spoke again.

“Did you make a list?” she asked all of a sudden, causing Eliot to frown as he glanced across at her.

“A list of what?” he asked, noting the piece of paper in her hand that hadn’t been there a moment before.

“Questions,” Parker explained. "I was reading stuff in the pregnancy book and anything that it didn’t explain, I wrote it down, ‘cause it said you should do that and then ask the doctor.”

Eliot opened his mouth to speak and closed it again fast. He understood what Parker was saying, and it made perfect sense... if you were anybody but Parker herself. Chances were good the questions on her list there were not at all appropriate things for her to be saying outloud in front of anyone who didn’t totally get her. The doctor could have her declared clinically insane inside five minutes if they weren’t careful, and now Eliot had to find a way to tell her that without upsetting her - not an easy task.

“Uh, Parker, honey,” he said at length. "Y’know, maybe you should save the list 'til the next trip and we can work on it together before then,” he suggested carefully.

She looked at him strangely, Eliot honestly wasn’t sure if she was going to blow up at him or just let it go. It was hard to tell with Parker, even after all these years and getting so close to her. Thankfully on this occasion it seemed Eliot’s luck was in.

“Okay, fine.” She shrugged, tossing the list onto the dash.

Eliot picked it up and shoved it in his pocket right before they got out of the car. There was no way anybody else needed to see that and he wasn’t taking any chances.

* * *

It was late, way past midnight and then some, but Eliot Spencer could not sleep. Despite his tough talk about only needing ninety minutes a day, that was not the ideal. Sure, he could survive on it, and when he had to he did, but it was always better to get a reasonable amount of rest, especially right now with life being so crazy.

Between the jobs the Leverage team pulled, taking care of a pregnant Parker, and navigating this strange undefined relationship he and the mother of his child were having, no sleep at all was going to take a considerable toll of Eliot’s health if he wasn’t careful.

Today had gone pretty well. Their visit to the doctor raised a few concerns, though the Doc assured both of them that all would most likely be well. Some levels were a little high and so he wanted to keep an eye of them, but he wasn’t worried so Eliot tried to make sure Parker wasn’t either. She seemed fine, which was almost more concerning than if she had panicked. If she hid her feelings away, Eliot couldn’t help her deal, and she was very good at hiding after so many years of feeling the need to do so. The fact she had chosen to sleep in her own room tonight was strange after the day they had, but he didn’t question it, hoping maybe by the morning she’d be more forthcoming.

Deciding sleep wasn’t coming, Eliot flipped on the light and reached out to the nightstand for a book to read. He stopped short of doing so when he spotted his jeans hung over the chair and remembered the piece of paper in his back pocket. With a wary look, the hitter soon found himself sat up in bed with Parker’s list of questions for the Doctor in his hand, almost afraid to read it. When he started, he alternated between chuckling with laughter and gasping with shock. There was no way on God’s green Earth he was going to be sat next to his thief whilst she said this stuff! Besides, half of it really had nothing to with being pregnant, and the other half was just inappropriate even for a doctor to hear!

Eliot was planning how he was ever going to get out of having to answer these questions for Parker without letting her ask them of the doctor either, when his attention was completely stolen by a scream. Immediately he was out of bed and rushing across the hall to Parker’s room. She was still asleep, but thrashing about terribly in the bed, apparently caught up in a nightmare. Mindful of waking her too suddenly or making matters worse, Eliot reached out to her shoulders to hold her still and spoke to her softly but firmly.

“Parker. Parker, listen to me. It’s okay, you’re okay,” he promised her. "Parker, come on, it’s Eliot, and you’re safe here,” he reminded her again.

It took a while but eventually her thrashing around stilled, and then her eyes popped open, a whimper escaping her throat as she looked up at him. Eliot wasn’t sure how to take the expression on her face that he could only just make out in the semi-dark. One thing was for sure, when he put his hand carefully to her cheek it came away damp.

“Hey,” he said as he sunk down to sit on the edge of the bed, reaching to flip on the lamp. "You okay now?” he checked.

Parker didn’t look as if she was even sure herself. With an expression akin to a deer in headlights, she just stared a few moments, presumably letting her brain unscramble from the nightmare back to reality. All at once, her face crumbled and the tears flowed again as she let herself be pulled close into Eliot’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed into his shoulder, hanging on tight like he was all that was keeping her lucid right now.

“’S okay, darlin’,” he promised her, kissing her hair as he shifted her in his arms and stood up, lifting her with him.

He carried her through to his room, kicking the door shut behind them, and trying to lay down on the bed without having to let go of her. She clung on the entire time, not willing to be released until she was done crying. It was a good ten minutes later when she was quiet and still, then she spoke.

“I hate nightmares,” she gurgled, the words screwed up by how upset she’d gotten and the fact her face was still half buried in Eliot’s chest.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to like them,” he told her, still stroking her hair as he held her close. "You wanna talk about it?”

Parker squirmed at that, clearly not even sure herself if she wanted to. After a while she shifted away a little so she could look at the man she was talking to.

“It’s stupid,” she sighed. "I just... after what the doctor said today, I keep thinking I did something wrong...”

“Hey, I already told you to cut that out,” said Eliot firmly. "Doc told you it was probably somethin’ and nothin’, and worrying about it won’t help any,” he reminded her. "It is nothing you did wrong.”

She nodded that she understood, but still Parker seemed troubled.

“It’s not just that. I keep thinking about how we’re gonna deal, how I’m going to deal with being, like, a mom.” She shook her head. "I tell myself it’ll be okay when I’m awake, but when I’m asleep... it’s like every bad thing that could happen with this kid just starts running through my head and I can’t make it stop and I can’t wake up...” Her voice gave up on her then as she tried so hard not to burst into tears one more time.

Eliot hated this, he hated that he couldn’t make it all better for her. Sure, he could tell Parker things would be okay, over and over, in fact that’s exactly what he had been doing, but he couldn’t really make a difference. Subconsciously, she was still freaking out and honestly there were times when he could do the same, looking forward into a future where he was going to have to step up and be a real live father. It was scary, whichever way you sliced it, and he couldn’t change that for either of them.

“Y’know, you’re not the only one who wants this kid to have a better childhood than your own,” he told her then, hugging her close again with her head under his chin. "I know I was one of the lucky ones compared to you or even Hardison. I had a real Momma and a Daddy and all,” he told her, "but... y’know, it wasn’t perfect. Nobody’s parents are perfect, and nobody has a perfect childhood,” he assured her, "but I tell you this, sweetheart, we’re gonna love the hell outta this kid, and that’s what matters the most, okay?”

“Okay,” he heard her answer softly, felt her head nod against his chest.

Before long, Eliot realised Parker was asleep, but knew he wouldn’t be following her any time soon. It was tough enough to relax knowing how upset she had been, but having her here, all curled up beside him, it made it impossible. He was comfortable with her, perhaps a little too much, but he needed too much self-control right now to let himself drift off.

When she was crying before, when she needed him so much, he wanted to make it better, he wanted to kiss her tears away and show her all the love she’d been missing, but he knew he couldn’t. Eliot was acutely aware of how delicate their situation was right now. Once false move and everything got shattered. She was in too fragile a condition to be messed around, not that he’d wanna do that anyway, but right now was the worst possible time to start changing the rules. He had promised to be here for Parker and their baby always. For now he was sticking with that and trying desperately not to let anything jeopardise the happy balance they had found of late, even though being this close and not really having her in any true sense was killing him on the inside.

* * *

The rest of the team didn’t exactly look shocked when Eliot and Parker walked in bickering like old marrieds. It was becoming quite the normal situation of late, though today brought a new topic they hadn’t heard broached before - baby names.

Honestly, Eliot hadn’t meant for it to turn into quite such a heated debate when he deliberately brought up the subject this morning. When he woke up and found Parker gone, he was just a little worried as to why. He found her in the living room with a box of cereal stuffed between the cushions at her side, as she munched away, staring through the TV screen as she channel hopped.

She wasn’t happy and he suspected last nights worries still plagued her. She would probably get over it, but she needed time to let the nightmares go and a distraction to help remove them from her head, he figured. Eliot had offered to make ‘proper’ breakfast and brought up the whole baby name thing as something happy and positive about the baby to focus on. In retrospect, maybe he could’ve chosen better.

“No way, Parker!” he told her with barely concealed fury as he walked around the couch and she dropped into an armchair. "No kid of mine is being named after a frickin’ fairy!”

“But Tinkerbell is so pretty!” Parker protested as she looked over at Sophie in the kitchen. "You think so, right?” she asked.

The very same moment the grifter opened her mouth to answer she wished she hadn’t.

“Um, well,” she started, looking to Nate who immediately averted his gaze for fear of influencing her and then to Eliot who was giving her the death glare. "Sweetie, it’s not a very practical name for a child,” she said carefully as she sipped her coffee, deciding she didn’t really want to come out from behind the counter till this was figured out.

“Yeah, ‘cause Sophie’s not weird at all,” Parker grumbled.

Sure that either Sophie herself was going to blow a fuse at that or Eliot was going to lose it instead over the whole Tinkerbell thing, Nate cut in next.

“Er, Eliot, what names did you have in mind for a girl?” he asked the hitter, propping himself on the arm of the couch his friend was now sat on.

“Jolene,” he said easily, at which Hardison chuckled.

“Jolene?” he echoed with barely concealed amusement as he glanced up from behind his laptop. "As in the man-eating bitch from the country song?” he checked.

“As in my Momma,” Eliot told him, sounding as southern and angry as anyone had ever heard him.

Hardison started back-pedalling so hard, he practically went through the wall.

“Oh, well... that, that’s a fine, beautiful name for a baby girl,” he was saying. "Really, I mean, the best name.”

“What about boys names?” Sophie cut in, having decided to come out into the room at last in an attempt to save any deaths occurring. "Can you agree on one of those?” she asked as she put herself quite deliberately between the couch and Hardison’s desk.

“Y’know Nathan is...” Nate began, stopping when he got twin looks of disapproval from Parker and Eliot, "is not something you wanna call a baby these days,” he finished lamely, following Sophie’s example of retreating to the kitchen for coffee.

“Peter,” said Parker then, catching everyone’s attention.

“Oh, hell, yeah!” Hardison whooped, remembering himself a second later when Eliot’s glare landed on him again. "Er, I mean, yeah,” he said more sedately. "Peter Parker... Spiderman?” he added when neither the hitter nor anyone else seemed to get the point.

“No, no way!” Eliot was annoyed again then as he turned to Parker. "We are not naming my son after some geek comic book crap,” he warned her. "Besides, it’s not Parker, it’s Spencer,” he reminded her.

“Woah!” that revelation had Parker up in arms in a second. "I’m sorry, who’s lugging this kid around for nine months and gotta push it out into the world? Parker!” she answered her own question. "So what’s the baby’s last name gonna be? Parker!” she confirmed, her arms crossed on her stomach in some kind of territorial manoeuvre it seemed.

Sophie looked from thief to hitter and back and sort of wished she’d stayed out of the way after all.

“Um, perhaps a compromise?” she suggested carefully. "Peter Parker-Spencer has quite the ring to it,” she said awkwardly, sharing a look with Nate who made a face that suggested he couldn’t agree, but he did know what she was trying to do.

There was a long pause when everyone was just waiting for the next explosion it seemed, but it never came.

“Parker-Spencer is okay, I guess.” The blonde shrugged after a while. "But it has nothing to do with superheroes anyway,” she told Eliot, sticking out her tongue childishly before returning her attention to her ever-growing bump. "He’d be my little Peter-man,” she said with a smile.

All eyes were on her for further explanation and when none came, Nate offered his own

“A peterman is a safebreaker,” he told the three members of his team that seemed oblivious to the phrase. "They used to call safebreakers petermen, because in the old days potassium nitrate or saltpetre would be used to blow the safe open,” he went on as he wandered back into the room, coffee in hand. "Man who uses the saltpetre, the petreman... and the spelling changed later.”

Sophie smiled, liking the fact that Parker clearly knew all that and wanted her baby named after something so specific to her life’s work. It was a beautiful idea, and the smile on Eliot’s face proved he must think so too. The way that expression disappeared the moment he was caught wearing it also proved to Sophie that the hitter didn’t want anyone thinking he was any softer as a would-be parent than he had been before!

“Now we just have to hope for a boy or face the prospect of a baby girl that remains nameless and argued over for the first few months of her life,” the grifter whispered to Nate as she passed by him and took a seat.

The mastermind took the moments pause as an opportunity to get the meeting started before any further arguments, baby-related or otherwise, could take over.

“Okay, so we have a new job, guys,” he told them. "Hardison, run it.”

Everyone seemed glad to have the baby conversation over with now and a new job to concentrate on. It seemed they wouldn’t need to bring Apollo in on this one since it was mostly a straight grifting job, with Eliot playing back up for Sophie in case things went south.

The hitter was concentrating, of course he was, but his eyes kept wandering away from the vid-screen to look at Parker. She was smiling, a genuine bright smile, with her hands resting on her pregnant belly. For her sake more than anything else he hoped she got that little boy she seemed to want so badly, and they would call him Peter if that was what she really wanted. Right now, Eliot firmly believed he’d give her the whole world if she would just keep on smiling that way, which was a scary idea for a the man that always vowed never to get in too deep with any woman after Aimee. Now he knew for sure there was no way out, but seriously, if they had a baby girl after all this, she was still not being called frickin’ Tinkerbell!


	19. Chapter 19

Parker felt twitchy as she sat in the booth of McRory’s with Hardison and Sophie. Nate and Eliot were out finishing up on their latest job, tying up loose ends and hoping there was no trouble in doing so. It was fine, she knew it would be fine, it always was, but today she felt odd about it. She couldn’t settle to anything, she couldn’t even have a real drink to help her nerves because she was pregnant.

Talking to Sophie didn’t help as the grifter seemed all too willing to knock back drink on drink and was already wavering as she returned from the bar this last time with another round. She offered Parker a further lemonade within five minutes and though she declined it, Sophie moved to get up and fetch another drink for herself.

“You okay, Soph?” Hardison checked as he glanced up from the laptop screen, on which he was keeping a watch over his team-mates, and saw her drop unceremoniously into her seat with a thud the moment she tried to stand again.

“Fine,” the grifter snapped before managing to actually get up this time and walk away to the bar.

She sat down on a stool when she got there and neither hacker or thief expected her to come back to them again, not right now. Something was clearly up, and though they were both somewhat worried by her behaviour, they dare not intervene. There was no way either of them would know what to say to make it better, and the chances were good it all boiled down to Nate and the woman he’d been flirting with on this job anyway. 

Of course, neither of them following Sophie meant Parker and Hardison were left alone together, something that hadn’t happened too much since the whole pregnancy announcement almost six months ago. She was quite a size now and there was no forgetting for anybody that she was expecting a baby, a child that was made of her and Eliot, and not Hardison as he wished for so long.

“And we are done,” said the hacker with a smile as he turned the laptop towards Parker and let her see Eliot and Nate exit the building with smiles on their faces - it had clearly gone well.

“That’s good,” the thief smiled brightly, letting out a breath she barely knew she was holding.

Hardison noticed her relief too, he’d noticed it a lot lately, though he wondered sometimes if even Parker knew how she was acting. She worried a lot about Eliot, more than she ever had before, he was certain. Sure, some of that was probably her hormones heightening everything, and she and the hitter were a whole lot closer than ever, but nothing romantic truly seemed to exist between them still. Nobody on the team had seen them kiss or hug or anything, no words of love shared. They were a couple in the sense of being parents together and of being friends, but nothing else seemed to be there.

It was none of his business, Hardison knew that, and encouraging Parker into Eliot’s arms seemed like the most stupid thing he could do in some ways. On the other hand, it was way too late for him and the little thief to make a pair, and if she truly cared for Eliot as much as she seemed to, well, nothing could be more perfect for the girl that never really had a family. Mama, Papa, and baby makes three, if she could have that set-up, Hardison was all for helping to make it happen, even if it still hurt some to know he couldn’t be a part of it exactly the way he wanted to be.

“So, Little Miss Mom-To-Be,” the hacker forced a smile as he closed the lid of the computer down and turned sideways on the seat to look at his friend. "How you doin’? I don’t think we had a chance to talk much in... forever!”

“I’m fine, kid’s fine,” said Parker shortly, looking startled.

She wasn’t meant to mention baby stuff much to Hardison, that’s what Eliot told her months ago now and she tried her best to stick to it. They were all a little more comfortable with each other these days and that was great, but she wasn’t sure how to deal now. Hardison was asking about the baby, so did that make it okay to talk about it? She wasn’t sure and there was nobody here to ask!

“That’s good,” the hacker nodded. "I guess he or she gonna start kicking out at us soon, huh?” he tried, sure he was right that by this point it was possible to feel baby’s kicking from the outside.

He hadn’t known a whole bunch of pregnant women but some things were just relatively general knowledge for a smart guy like him.

“Um, yeah,” Parker nodded. "I’m pretty sure I felt it the other day but when Eliot put his hand there it stopped so... maybe it was gas.” She shrugged, feeling awkward. "Can I ask you something?” she checked then, her eyes shut the whole time, though Hardison couldn’t figure on why.

“Shoot,” he told her easily.

“If you’re asking me stuff about the baby, then it’s not wrong for me to tell right? ‘Cause Eliot said not to mention baby stuff to you too much, because of you liking me, and us not wanting to make you feel bad, but that was weeks ago now, and we’re okay, so that’s okay, right?” she rattled out at a mile a minute.

Thankfully, Hardison was used to the way she did that sometimes and just about managed to keep up. What shocked him more than anything about what Parker was telling him, was Eliot. They were back to being friends now, more or less, not how they used to be but it was better, a little easier to deal. Still, Hardison couldn’t help but blame Eliot somewhat for screwing him over. Now it seemed the hitter really had felt truly sorry for that, to the point where he had tried his best to ensure Parker or himself didn’t create any more upset that was absolutely necessary. They did care about his feelings, Hardison knew they did, but the proof of it had him smiling like an idiot all the same.

“It’s cool, Parker,” he promised her. "I mean, it was weird, for a while, the whole you and Eliot thing-”

“Tell me about it,” Parker interrupted without even thinking.

“But if he’s making you happy and all, then I can deal.” He shrugged. "’Sides folks that can stick together when they’re having a kid is all good by me,” he said with knowing look.

The both of them had been through so much because their real parents hadn’t wanted them or just couldn’t cope. This baby Parker was carrying now was going to be so lucky to have parents that would love him or her and each other so much, plus at least two uncles and a aunt to fuss over them like crazy.

“It still feels weird,” the blonde admitted, her hand on her pregnant belly making Hardison assume that was what she was talking about at first, though perhaps he should’ve known better than to assume - this was Parker after all.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not the only woman in the world that finds havin’ a baby a whole big adventure,” he told her kindly, but she shook her head at that.

“That’s not what’s weird,” she told him. "Well, it is,” she considered as she sipped her lemonade, "but I didn’t mean that. Me and Eliot, that’s what’s weird,” she explained. "I mean, it’s like we’re married or something, ‘cause we live together and we take care of each other, and we’re having a kid, but we never do anything.”

“Do anything?” Hardison echoed, just a little concerned about where she was going with that particular phrase.

“Yeah,” Parker confirmed with a nod. "Y’know, we don’t kiss or have sex or anything like that, and I want to, I think. I get these feelings and I kinda don’t know what to do with them, ‘cause thay’re messed up and weird,” she explained badly, as Parker often did when it came to anything that wasn’t to do with lock breaking or rappelling.

Hardison felt a little queasy thinking about his friend and the girl he had a crush on since forever making the beast of two-backs or whatever. Still, what got to him more than that was the idea that it wasn’t happening. He just assumed when Parker moved in with Eliot they were together, in all senses of the word. It seemed that wasn’t the case and Parker was struggling terribly with how she was feeling. The last thing the hacker ever wanted was to see her suffer.

“Er, Parker,” he said carefully, mindful of screwing up or just squicking himself out too much. "Did you try... making things happen?” he tried, but realised off her baffled expression that he wasn’t being clear enough for a person so inexperienced in relationships. "Did you tell him you’re, like, in love with him?”

The way the thief bust up laughing so suddenly and loudly made Hardison physically jump and actually worry for her mental health for a little while when she didn’t seem inclined to stop.

“Oh, that’s just... I’m not in love with Eliot,” she continued to gasp through a severe case of the giggles, putting her glass down on the table so she didn’t spill.

Then just as suddenly she stopped laughing and turned serious eyes on her friend.

“Parker?” he checked, honestly not sure if she was going to hurl or cry or what.

“Am I in love with Eliot?” she asked straight out. "I can’t be, I mean... I wouldn’t know how to be, except maybe I am,” she considered, feeling totally bewildered by the whole realisation.

In some ways, Hardison felt bad for making her even consider this. He would rather she weren’t in love with his bro in a lot of ways, and yet it would work out best for the both of them and their baby if she were. The evidence he’d seen and heard sure suggested she had those deep and meaningful feelings for the hitter. Now seemed to be the first time she herself had contemplated it.

“You okay?” Hardison checked when Parker had been too quiet too long.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. "Hardison, I think I might actually be in love with Eliot,” she said, gripping his sleeve like that might help. "What do I do about that?” she asked in earnest.

“Well, first you could try breathin’, mama,” he advised her kindly, wrapping his hand around hers where her fingers gripped his shirt sleeve still. "And then you might wanna take your guy home and tell him what’s goin’ on in your head,” he told her, tilting his head towards the door where Eliot had just walked in on Nate’s heels.

Parker still looked a little panicked for a moment but then when she looked towards the man she apparently loved, she found a smile. Her grip on Hardison’s sleeve loosened and she made a gesture for him to let her out of the booth already, which he did. She made to walk away but just as suddenly turned back, looking Hardison over like she wasn’t sure what she was back here for. He was about to ask what was up now when she grabbed at him in an awkward hug and planted a random kiss on his cheek.

“I don’t know much about how it all works,” she told him softly, "but I think you’d be a good boyfriend.” She smiled before turning away.

Hardison watched her leave with Eliot then and smiled sadly to himself.

“Yeah,” he sighed. "Just not for you, girl.”

* * *

Nate was tired. Actually he was beyond tired. These past few days had really taken their toll, hardly sleeping through the whole of a con that took the better part of a week to close out. It was a job well done, the victim saved and the crook sent to jail, but honestly all he wanted to do right now was sleep, for two days straight if at all possible. He knew Eliot was feeling pretty much the same when they parted ways outside of McRorys, the hitter heading home with Parker in tow, whilst the mastermind went upstairs to his own apartment. He was somewhat surprised to find Sophie on his couch with a glass of his scotch in her hand.

“Hey, Soph,” he frowned a little as he observed her. "You okay?”

“Am I okay?” she echoed his question, a hint of less than genuine laughter creeping into her tone. "No, Nate, I’m really not sure that I am ‘okay’,” she huffed, before downing her drink in one.

It might’ve been impressive to him, how much she could drink without being anything less than her usual graceful self, but then he realised that perhaps he was being a little generous. this wasn’t Sophie Devereaux sat before him now, the elegant, stylish grifter that rich men both loved and feared in equal measure. This was a shaky, insecure, decidedly drunk woman, that must be in some sort of distress to ever allow herself to be in such a state where anyone could see her. Even Nate had never seen her quite like this.

“Sophie, talk to me,” he urged her, catching her by the arm as she made to walk by him, perhaps in search of another drink.

Her face was hidden by her hair as she turned away and he reached out to move her brunette locks aside. She had been crying, and more tears threatened at any moment, he was sure of it. It broke his heart to see her in pain like this, especially when he was pretty sure that whatever was bothering her was not something he could fix. Nate found he was great at helping to mend the problems of strangers, but when it came to those closest to him, he failed miserably almost every time.

“Why couldn’t it be me, Nate?” asked Sophie, turning desperate eyes upon him. "I know it’s horrible of me to be jealous, and it doesn’t make sense. I’m not the settling down type, you know that as well as I do, and with all I have in the world, I shouldn’t want more... but I do,” she cried helplessly.

Drunken rambling wasn’t always easy to untangle, but Nate ought to be quite the expert given his own penchant for the bottle. Plus of course he had the advantage of knowing Sophie well, or as well as anyone in the world could claim to know the grifter with a hundred names and personalities to match. If she was jealous and felt wrong about it, if she was talking about settling down, there could only be one explanation.

“Parker,” he said after a moments thought. "You’re jealous of Parker?” he checked.

Sophie pulled away then and sunk down into the couch cushions with her head in her hands. She felt positively dreadful for the way she was feeling, but it truly couldn’t be helped. In her head she supposed part of her had always wanted that kind of life, a husband and children, a house with a white picket fence. It wasn’t for everyone, most probably suspected it was never an idea that featured in the head of a woman like her, but it was there. It was there more often than it wasn’t lately as Sophie watched Parker grow ever larger in her pregnancy and seem to settle into a routine with the man that helped her make that baby. Nate’s gut twisted at the realisation he and Sophie could be so much closer by now too, if he had allowed it. A couple of nights had come and gone, but they never amounted to anything. It was more than sex, he was pretty sure they both knew that, though neither ever admitted it aloud, and to all intents and purposes very little appeared different between them than they had been years before.

“Come on,” he said as she came to sit down beside Sophie and pulled her head to his shoulder. "I didn’t... I didn’t even think you’d want that life.”

“You never bloody asked,” she told him, words muffled by the fact her face was buried in his shoulder. "If you’d asked, if you’d even tried to... Oh, why can’t you just know, Nate!” she exclaimed with frustration as her head came up suddenly off his shoulder and nearly smacked him in the jaw for good measure. "Like you know cons and criminals. Why can’t you just... know what I want?” she asked frustratedly, but much more quietly than she’d begun as she looked into his eyes then and lost herself completely.

She hadn’t meant to kiss him, and he certainly hadn’t meant to let her, not in this state. The trouble with Sophie was that even if all else failed, Nate did love her. When she kissed him he forgot all other rational thought for however long the moment lasted. He should be saying no and telling her to stop this. She was drunk and upset, this was not how this should ever happen, and on some level they both knew it, and yet it didn’t stop them.


	20. Chapter 20

Parker couldn’t sleep. If she had to explain why she would say that her head was too full, and then whoever had asked her for the explanation would give her that particular look she got a lot and tell her she was crazy. That included Eliot, though he’d probably say it in a nicer way than most and then ask her what was wrong. The problem was that he seemed to be the one person she just couldn’t explain it to right now.

It was strange, because the whole point was that Parker was getting ever more comfortable around Eliot. She relied on him, as much as she allowed herself to rely on anyone, and more than that, she genuinely wanted to be around him, like, all the time. It had taken her conversation with Hardison today to make her realise just how much Eliot truly meant her. She was in love with him, or so she thought. It was hard for Parker to tell since she’d never actually felt this way before, never been in love or even close as far as she could figure.

Hardison seemed to think that she needed to tell Eliot how she was feeling and see how he responded. It was a solid plan, as far as plans went, and Parker wanted to go with it, but somehow it hadn’t happened. She really wasn’t good at talking, at finding the right words for things. This was how she had come to the conclusion that showing Eliot how she felt rather than telling him might work better. They were both physical people, it made so much more sense, but still the thief found she struggled to just do it already.

Any time she thought might be the right time to go in for the kill, so to speak, she lost her nerve. It was so strange, since jumping off buildings and diving into trouble never usually gave the thief any cause to fret. Now a simple little thing like kissing a guy was making her panic, and blush, and want to hide and run away. This was not normal for Parker.

She considered that maybe it was her pregnancy throwing her off. She tried blaming Eliot for being the problem. In the end, Parker had gone to her own bed in a huff that she refused to explain to her not-quite-boyfriend-yet, and had laid here ever since trying to get some sleep that refused to come. Night had rolled on to early morning, and here she was, still staring at the ceiling, and still trying to figure out why she was suddenly finding something so simple, so very difficult.

Maybe it was being in love, she thought, but it just didn’t make sense to Parker that something that was supposed to be so wonderful should make getting close so much harder. It ought to be easier than ever, all natural and beautiful and stuff, at least that’s how Sophie had always described it when they got into one of their deep and meaningful conversations on topics Parker didn’t entirely understand herself.

Love was what made you feel whole and complete, it was even supposed to make sex better, that’s what Sophie said, and Parker trusted her grifter friend to be right about these things, she bowed to her superior knowledge. Of course she was never going to know for sure if she was in love if she never made anything happen between herself and Eliot.

Growing ever frustrated with her own behaviour, Parker threw herself out of bed so suddenly she felt quite giddy. It took a moment for her head to settle and then she stormed off down the hall to Eliot’s room. She didn’t knock, she didn’t even pause, just barged in, almost startling the man she had come to see.

Eliot was already awake and had been sat up in bed reading a while. It was kind of a surprise when the door swung open and there stood Parker. Still in her night clothes, an expression on her face that he didn’t have time to try and unscramble before she was there on the bed beside him.

“Parker...” he began, planning on asking her if she was okay and what was going on, but he never got the chance as she shushed him.

There was a strange moments pause before suddenly her lips were on his and she was kissing him with a passion that seemed to come from nowhere. Well, it wasn’t entirely from nowhere. They’d done this before, several times in fact, though it never really came to anything. Eliot wasn’t exactly clear on why they were doing so again now or where it was meant to lead and he almost forgot to care to figure out as he reciprocated.

The book fell on the floor with a thud, Parker’s top came off somewhere along the line, and the moment went on. Long, deep kisses, that elicited moans, hands running over skin, a closeness they’d both been craving too long. It was oh so very clear where this was going and it felt way too good to Parker for her to ever want to stop. Unfortunately, when her hands strayed to Eliot’s sweatpants, his brain caught up to his other senses and gently he pushed her away.

“No, Parker,” he told her, not at all as firmly as he meant to.

“What? Why?” she asked in earnest, as she sat back to look at him, not bothering to move from her straddling position. "I don’t understand,” she said seriously, eyes wide in innocence despite what they had been about to do, and breath coming too fast after all the kissing and exhilarating rush of feelings that had knocked the air from her lungs.

Looking at her now, Eliot almost forgot what the explanation was for why he stopped both her and himself from giving into this thing between them. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to have sex with Parker, far from it, and she was clearly in a position (quite literally) where she felt the same. Still, he couldn’t let this happen, not now, not like this. Too much was at stake, more than he could ever have imagined before their odd relationship began.

Last time when he and Parker were together, things had seemed so simple. He wanted her, she wanted him. They were both young, free, and single, and needing to work out some tension and all. They found each other attractive and they needed a fix with no strings attached. It seemed to work out perfectly, until one month later when it turned out it hadn’t been simple and carefree at all.

Now there was a baby, now there was cohabiting, now there were very real feelings between them, and though it ought to have made it better, it just made it more complicated. It was more than Eliot had the brain capacity to explain right now, especially after the way Parker had got him so worked up, and so easily too.

“Parker, darlin’,” he sighed, encouraging her to get off him before he completely lost his mind. "I just... We can’t, okay?” he told her again, knowing he wasn’t being fair but also knowing explaining wouldn’t really make it any better.

“You said that,” she told him, as he passed her the top she’d tossed aside and she gave in and put it back on. "You still didn’t say why,” she pointed out, even as Eliot moved to sit on the edge of the bed with his back to her.

She watched as he ran his hand back through his hair and breathed deeply, presumably to gain some control. It made Parker smile through the pain of rejection to realise how easy she got him going, and recalling how ridiculously good it had felt just to be kissing Eliot like that again.

“We can’t, because of the baby,” he said after a while.

“Well, that’s not a reason,” she said as she scrambled across the bed to sit right behind him. "I read in the book that it’s fine so long as we...”

“No, Parker,” he repeated, more loudly and angrily before.

He leapt up from the bed the moment her hands landed on his shoulders, as if her touch had scalded him somehow. She was hurt and he knew it, which was why he couldn’t bear to look at her right now. She didn’t understand, and he couldn’t explain properly so he did what he ought to have known better than to do - he walked away. Grabbing his clothes from the chair, he was gone from the room in moments, and made sure he was out of the apartment before she ever had chance to give chase. He almost definitely left her in tears and Eliot knew that made him a fool. It also made him even more mad at himself than he had been before. Man, he really needed someone or something to hit right about now!

* * *

Sophie Deveraux didn’t exactly feel great when she woke up in the morning. Before she ever opened her eyes she was acutely aware that she was not in her own bed, and that she was far more clothed than she ought to be for the purposes of sleeping. The pounding in her head proved she had drunk far too much of Nate’s scotch last night, and the disgusting taste in her mouth was an awful reminder that it didn’t stay down either.

Putting a hand to her head, Sophie forced her eyes open just a little and peeked through her fingers at the ceiling. This was Nate’s bedroom, as she had sort of expected, though she fought to recall how exactly she got here or what exactly had occurred between the two of them. She had a vague memory of crying on him and then kissing. The rest was shockingly misty... at first.

“Oh bloody, buggering hell!” she cursed herself, hiding her face in the pillow as her quick mind caught up with itself, even through the thick molasses of her hangover. "You stupid, stupid cow!” she continued, words somewhat muffled which she was all the more thankful for when she realised she was no longer alone.

“I’m sorry, were you talking to me?” asked Nate as he appeared at the top of the spiral staircase, two steaming mugs in his hands.

Sophie peered at him, mostly just her eyes showing between the duvet, the pillow, and her mussed up hair. She really didn’t want him to see her like this. Not that it would be the first time, of course. They had slept together, in all senses of the word, a couple of times now, though it would appear last night was strictly sleep and even then not necessarily together.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, making Nate one of the few people to ever get an apology out of the notorious grifter - if nothing else, he took that as a compliment.

“Here,” he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed and handed her a coffee. "Strong and black. It should help.”

“Thank you,” she politely replied as she sat herself up some, pushed her hair back out of the way, and accepted the drink. "It might help the hangover, it’s not going to change what an idiot I am,” she muttered, before concentrating solely on sipping her coffee and not passing out from the pain and suffering running all through her body thanks to alcohol.

“Yeah, you’re the bad guy.” Nate rolled his eyes as he drank down some of his own coffee. "’Cause I’m just delightful when I drink,” he reminded her sarcastically.

“That’s not the point,” Sophie sighed as she put her mug on the nightstand for a while and lay back against the pillows. "My behaviour was disgusting, Nate, and I know it,” she said, eyes closed a while as she tried to push back nausea and at the same time hide away from the one man she could not bear to be judged by. "Bringing up marriage and children, when I know what happened with Maggie and Sam. That was just awful of me.” She shook her head tentatively as she looked at him then. "I am so sorry,” she repeated solemnly. "And then to throw myself at you and expect you would want to be anywhere near me... Oh, what is wrong with me?!” she berated herself, more loudly than her own head could stand.

Her hands covered her face as she wished the world away, or more specifically wished she could take back last night and the unholy mess she’d made of the relationship between her and Nate. They had an undefined connection at best, but it was never going to get any better by her torturning him with his own lost happioness and throwing her drunken self into his arms!

“Hey,” Nate said then, reaching out to move her hands away and look her in the eye.

He was much closer than before, and Sophie couldn’t decide if that was better or worse until he spoke.

“I don’t expect you or anyone else to never mention happy families just because of what happened with me,” he told her gently. "I’m happy for Parker, and for Eliot. I’m not bitter that they have what I lost or anything,” he assured her, making her feel so much better, until a little steel crept into his tone as he continued. "I just wish that it didn’t take a bottle of something much stronger than coffee to make you want to throw yourself at me,” he told her sadly. "That’s what hurts, Sophie. That’s the real reason why I slept on the couch and nothing really happened here last night.”

He was up and walking away before Sophie could fully process what he’d said. She thought her head and stomach hurt enough before simply from the abuse she’d put her own body through with drink. It was nothing compared to the stake through her heart just now. She’d hurt him, in a worse way than she ever meant to or thought she could.

The door slamming downstairs told her, before she even had a chance to consider it, that there was no point running after Nate and trying to make her peace right now. There was so much in their twisted relationship that she could blame him for. The drinking, the self-pity, the superiority and inferiority complexes that did battle on a weekly basis, it was all his fault, or so she told herself and him as well. Now he’d proven her wrong by making her face up to the fact she was just as incapable of a proper romantic relationship as he was. That did not sit well with Sophie, especially since she knew he was perfectly right.

Not that Nate was feeling particularly good about the way he’d behaved either. Speaking to Sophie that way did not make him clever or smart, and upset him as much as it did her. That didn’t change the fact she had hurt him again, by proving she only really cared enough to get close to him when she was attempting to beat his own record for drunkenness. Perhaps it was telling that his best idea for getting over the whole situation was to head down to the bar. Perhaps it was a good thing he never made it, though stumbling across a tear-stained blonde in the back room of McRory’s didn’t thrill him either.

“Parker?” he approached her cautiously as he always had with the young woman prone to fork-stabbing and such at a moments notice.

“Why do things never work out for me?” she asked in tearful desperation as she suddenly leapt up from her seat and threw herself into a startled Nate’s arms.

Sophie was wrong about him being without a family these days, he realised with a sad smile, as he awkwardly rubbed Parker’s back and tried to calm her down. He was still a father if nothing else, and as odd as this situation might be, he wasn’t exactly sorry about that either.


	21. Chapter 21

Nate wasn’t so sure that bringing Parker through to sit at the bar was his best idea ever. Still, as bad ideas went, it was ranking second after offering to talk to her at all on this particular subject. She was upset and she needed help, that’s what he was here for in the role of her father figure or mentor type person. He was more than willing to be there for her when she had a crisis about her baby, her past, a job, anything he knew something about and was comfortable discussing. This was different, this was about relationships, specifically the relationship between Parker and Eliot, and the word ‘sex’ had already been mentioned more times than Nate was comfortable with, namely once!

Sitting in the back room to talk would have been fine except Nate was sure Sophie would emerge any moment and come down here. Passing over parenting duty to her was usually preferable, but right now they weren’t exactly in the best place themselves to be helping Parker properly between them. It was down to Nate alone to do this and steeling himself against embarrassment and reminders of his real stint in fatherhood, he had led Parker through to the bar, got her a napkin to wipe her tears away, and ordered her a sweet tea to calm her nerves. She seemed better already, except she wanted to talk about sex apparently.

“I don’t understand.” She shook her head sadly. "I mean, guys like sex, right? They want it, like, all the time, and when you’re in love with a person that’s supposed to make it better, that’s what Sophie said.”

She looked to Nate for an answer then and he stumbled over trying to give one, not least because he was mindful of the few other patrons in McRorys overhearing their topic of conversation!

“Um, well... yeah, that’s usually how it works,” he muttered, "but Parker, can we just go back,” he said, feeling as flustered as he looked, despite two double scotches already, the early hour be damned. "Did you just tell me that you and Eliot are in love?” he checked, finding the concept a little strange, primarily because the most emotionally stunted member of his team had just blurted it out as if it were nothing at all.

“Well, I am,” she confirmed. "Apparently. I think.” She frowned. "I thought maybe we both were, and I was going to ask but I just, I’m not good with the words for that, because I never did it before, so I just thought if we had sex and it felt different, the good kind of different,” she clarified fast, "that I’d know and then maybe I could find the words. Does that make sense?” she asked Nate in earnest.

“I... I guess so, yeah,” he confirmed, only glad he had kept up with the words that had come flying out of her at a mile a minute.

It was clear this situation had her all in a spin, and that couldn’t be good, not for her or the baby. From what she had said, it seemed she’d tried for physical intimacy with Eliot and got rebuffed, which made some sense in a way.

“Y’know, maybe Eliot is just worried about hurting you or the baby,” he said, never actually looking at her because that would be mortifying, "in your condition,” he added for clarification, but Parker didn’t seem convinced.

“I told him it was fine, if we did it like they said in the book.” She sighed.

“Well, yeah, okay, but think about this,” said Nate, thinking fast. "Eliot’s job on the team is hurting people, and his life has been... well, mostly in pursuit of his own happiness and all. Maybe he’s worried about losing control and causing harm unintentionally?” he tried.

Honestly, he hadn’t got another answer for what was happening here and there was no way for Nate to be any more knowledgeable on the subject. Sure, he had brains enough for cons and all, but knowing what was going on inside the heads of two of his team-mates during such a confusing time in their lives and relationship, it was impossible.

“Hmm, maybe,” Parker considered, "but he got so mad at me. I hate that,” she sighed heavily as she sipped at her tea and then made a face. "Ugh! That’s nasty,” she declared, pushing it away.

“Most things that are good for us are.” Nate smiled, unable to help it. "Do you know the only way you’re going to know what’s going on inside Eliot’s head, Parker?” he asked her then, watching her as she thoughtfully considered her answer to that.

“Oooh, cut his head open?” she asked with a little more excitement than the mastermind was truly comfortable with.

“No,” he told her quickly and firmly. "I meant you should talk to him. No physical stuff, just ask him out-right, and if he gets defensive then, well, as hard as it is, sometimes you have to be the one to make the first move... in talking,” he clarified. "If you tell him how you’re feeling, maybe that’ll help him open up too.”

Parker thought on that a while. She had to be the brave one out of her and Eliot. Well, that was a new concept. Not that she wasn’t usually tough enough, but he was the hitter, the protector, the all-around tough guy. When it came to emotions and feelings though, they were both pretty beaten and scarred on the inside. Maybe Nate was right and she was going to have to brave the words of love first if she wanted to hear them back from Eliot. Hopping down off her stool, she found a smile that she happily shone in Nate’s direction.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely enough.

“I didn’t really do anything.” He shrugged even as he smiled back her, only glad to see the happy expression on her face at last.

“There’s a reason you run this team, Nate,” she told him then, as she pulled her jacket on. "In a crisis, we trust you to figure everything out and make it okay again, and that’s what you always do.”

She left on that note, without a word of goodbye. Nate watched her go and then looked back to his now empty glass. He momentarily considered ordering another but ultimately changed his mind. He really ought to take his own advice that he gave so freely to others.

* * *

All the anger had gone out of Eliot after walking around Boston for the better part of an hour. In the absence of anything to hit, he usually went running or walking to burn off the excess energy and frustration. It seemed to have worked for the most part this morning, but it wasn’t going to solve the problem he was facing. With that he knew he needed help, no matter how much he wished he didn’t, and so he headed for the only logical place to seek out a man who might have a little insight into long-term relationships, pregnant women, and screwing up with both!

Coming through the back door and crossing through the room behind the bar, Eliot’s focus was on where he was going and nowhere else. This was how he completely missed Nate and Parker sat at the bar talking and headed on up the stairs to the apartment. He got a surprise when he found the door had been left ajar. Instinct told him to be wary as he pushed said door fully open, ready for whatever came flying at him, but relieved when nothing did.

“Sophie?” He frowned when he saw her alone in the kitchen, wearing one of Nate’s shirts over her dress from the night before.

“Bloody hell!” she cursed as his sudden appearance made her jump and drop a cup onto the floor - it smashed rather spectacularly near her bare feet.

Eliot hurried over and moved her away from the mess, cleaning it up himself as he apologised for scaring her. She didn’t look good, a cursory glance told him she didn’t feel it either. If he had to guess, he’d say hangover and a fight with Nate, since tear-tracks were evident on her cheeks and the man himself didn’t seem to be anywhere around.

“This day just couldn’t get worse,” the grifter complained as she sat herself down on a stool and put her face in her hands.

“Preachin’ to the choir, sweetheart,” Eliot told her easily as he dumped broken crockery into the trash and washed his hands. "Let me guess, you and Nate got drunk, up close and personal, and then somebody had regrets?” he checked as he set about making the tea Sophie had clearly been trying to get when he walked in and spooked her.

“Not exactly,” she sighed, forcing a smile when she realised what he was doing, "but you didn’t come here to talk to a silly drunk woman about her love life,” she said as she pushed her hair off her face. "Were you looking for Nate for something?” she asked, preferring to talk about any problem he was having rather than her own.

Eliot didn’t answer for a moment, just finished making two cups of tea, and then took a seat across the counter from his friend. Sure, he had come here for advice from Nate but there was a chance that Sophie might be even better qualified. She was female after all, and as bad as it might sound to anyone who didn’t know better, a little more normal than Parker. She had to see where he was coming from when he explained himself, even if the woman he loved more didn’t seem to.

“So, me and Parker had a fight,” he told her straight out. "And no matter how many times I try to figure out how to put it right, I’m comin’ up empty,” he sighed, staring into his tea cup as if he hoped maybe the answers to his questions would be in there somewhere.

“There’s a lot of that around.” Sophie sighed heavily, before putting the pin back in her own self-pity and going on. "What did you fight about?” she asked, sipping her tea.

“We, er... Parker wanted to get close,” he tried to explain. "Y’know... really close.”

Sophie fought the fuzz of her hangover to make out what Eliot was trying to tell her with his vague comments and particularly pointed looks. What had her confused was that she was pretty sure Eliot should have no problems in the sex department, and obviously he and Parker had been there before or she wouldn’t be carrying his child.

“And you don’t want to have sex with Parker?” she guessed. "Because...?” she prompted when he didn’t respond or even look at her.

“Damnit, Sophie, it ain’t as simple as that,” he said angrily, though none of the rage was pointed at her, she was sure of it. "It’s not like it’d be that simple if it was just me and her to think about.” He shook his head.

“It was once,” Sophie reminded him. "You two didn’t seem to have any trouble ‘getting close’ then and her being pregnant shouldn’t make a difference.” She shrugged. "Eliot, pregnant women can have sex. Parker told me herself when she read it in her book-”

“I know that,” he interrupted, his eyes closed and numbers almost visibly counting in his head as he attempted to not lose his temper with the one person who was trying to help right now. "It’s not the physical thing, or part of it is, but I could probably handle that,” he admitted. "I don’t wanna hurt her in any other ways, Soph,” he tried to explain and failed as badly now as he had with Parker herself.

Sophie wasn’t getting it. She was sharper than most the vast majority of the time but the hangover wasn’t helping, plus a head full of her own relationship problems. Eliot had to be clear and at least with Sophie he didn’t have to worry quite so much about looking like a fool. She wouldn’t judge, not now, and she wouldn’t make fun of him later. His friendship with her was much less fragile than whatever the hell it was he and Parker had anyway.

“Eliot, any fool can see you love Parker,” she told him, putting her hand over his on the counter top. "And whilst she’s not exactly the easiest person to read, I’d lay good money she feels the same about you,” she assured him. "Of course there are risks even then that things won’t work out, believe me, I know, but you can’t never take the risk.”

Eliot opened his mouth to answer her but closed it again just as fast. He knew there were risks in all relationships, it was the main thing that was bothering him. If they got closer, him and Parker, it wasn’t just their future happiness they were risking, it was their kid too. Of course, keeping Parker at arms length was hurting her and himself, Eliot realised it now more than ever. If they carried on this way they were going end up, well, for lack of a better example, like Nate and Sophie, and that was none too pretty. Skirting around each other, trying to be friends and falling miserably, having the occasional fumble and fling, regretting it in the morning. It was messy, too damn messy to have a child in the middle of.

“I just keep thinkin’...” He shook his head. "About me, the way I am sometimes, and about Aimee...”

“Eliot!” Sophie sighed in exasperation. "In case you hadn’t noticed, Parker is not Aimee, or any other girlfriend you might’ve had in years gone by,” she reminded him sternly, wishing she hadn’t got so close to shouting when her head pounded from her own noise. "You’re not even the same person you used to be.”

“I could be,” he chimed in, trying to turn away.

Immediately she shook her aching head, no matter how much it pained her, and pulled on his hand to keep his attention.

“You couldn’t,” she told him firmly. "Are you the same man that we met all those years ago when this team began?” she asked him. "The same man that left Aimee behind? The same man that did those despicable things for Damien Moreau?” she challenged when he looked ready to defy her.

Eliot knew she was right, just like she always had to be. There was more than one way in which Sophie tried to play mother to them all, and always having good advice and being right in it was one of those ways. He couldn’t be the man he once was, not now. He could barely live with the things he’d done in his past, there was no way on Earth he could allow them to become his future to. For Parker’s sake, for his child’s sake, for his own sake, he was different. This relationship and family they were building could be different, but if he didn’t give it a chance he was just going to ruin one more good thing in his life before it even really started.

“You’re a hell of a woman, Sophie Devereaux,” he told her then, leaning over the counter to plant a kiss on her cheek. "I see Nate on my way outta here, I’m gonna tell him.”

“Do me a favour? Don’t,” she urged him. "For once he didn’t screw up. I did.”

Eliot didn’t ask how or why, just nodded that he understood and left. He had some things to figure out with the woman in his life, and he didn’t want to get in the way of this couple doing the same thing just as soon as possible.


	22. Chapter 22

Parker had been pacing since she got home. She had hoped that by the time she got back to the apartment Eliot would be there, but she was wrong. Thinking fast she went for her cell to call him but got no reply. Somehow what she needed to say didn’t seem like something to be left on voicemail so she hung up. Thinking a moment, she then dialled a different number and waited impatiently for an answer.

“Hey, mama,” Hardison greeted her with a smile. "Sorry, I took so long, I was-”

“Is Eliot there?” Parker interrupted whatever her friend was going to say without a care.

He let it go since she sounded so worried. Knocking down the volume on his video game some more, he pulled off the headphones he’d been wearing and gave Parker his full attention.

“Nah, I ain’t seen Eliot all day,” he told her. "You okay?” he checked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she sighed as she sat down heavily. "Men are complicated,” she declared then, making Hardison smile.

“Yeah, ‘cause women, they so easy to figure,” he teased, before getting serious again. "You and Eliot gonna be okay? Did you have a fight or something?” he checked.

“Kind of,” admitted Parker, "but it’ll be okay. He’ll come home soon and... it’ll be fine,” she said with more confidence than she felt. "I should go, you probably wanna finish your quest or whatever you’re doing.”

Hardison opened his mouth to protest that his life didn’t just revolve around the team and computer games. Unfortunately, his eyes drifted across to the huge TV screen that showed his latest quest in the centre with small boxes of his online friends all around, everybody muted while he spoke to Parker. This really was his life.

“You sure you’re gonna be okay, mama?” he double-checked before he would ever leave her.

“I’m sure.” She smiled at his concern, before sending him off to virtual battle again. "Go hoarde.”

The hacker chuckled at her phrasing and said he would go, but only after she promised to call back again if she needed him. He was kind of glad that she let him go anyhow, as he returned to not just his game but his online gaming buddies. They were all decent folks, but there was one in particular he didn’t like to be away from too long if he could help it.

“I’m back, people. Where we at?” he checked as they resumed their game.

“Right here where you left us, boss,” joked MissDayBreak aka Felicia, someone Hardison had been playing this game with for weeks now and never tired of her company.

“Woman, bring yo’ ass over here so we can get this thing done,” he told her with a laugh, as they continued their game.

Felicia was fun, no doubt about it. She and Hardison had a similar sense of humour and were almost as smart as each other in all things geek. It never really occurred to them to meet beyond the virtual world, at least not until she mentioned how close by she lived.

Hardison knew all the badness that could come from meeting people in real life that you knew on the internet, but he wasn’t dumb. He checked out her history, her ID and all, and a little scan he’d run proved she’d done a little digging around in his background too.

Maybe they would meet up sometime, if only for a coffee and to talk World of Warcraft face to face. Maybe there’d be more to it than that, and that couldn’t be a bad thing, Hardison thought, as his avatar ran full pelt into battle with his sword held high. With Parker and Eliot making this work no matter what they found to fight about in between, maybe it was time for Hardison to move on with his life too.

* * *

Parker jumped up from her seat the moment she heard the door open and close. She moved so fast that she made her own head swim and almost sat down again just as quick as she’d gotten up. She steadied herself just in time, as Eliot strode into the living room, looking almost as pissed as when he left before. He softened immediately he saw Parker looking so shaky.

“Hey,” he greeted her. "You okay?”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded, shifting awkwardly.

They had both been waiting for this moment, to be facing each other again so they could say what needed to be said. Now they were here and... nothing. It was as if all the things they planned to say and do had just disappeared in a moment, leaving them with no words to say or moves to make.

When they did finally manage to find their bearings it was, ironically, both at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” they said together, smiling when they realised what had happened.

“Ladies first,” he prompted, ever the gentleman of course, though just this once Parker almost wished he wasn’t.

She kind of wanted to argue the point, but then she remembered what Nate had said about speaking up first. It wasn’t normal for her to have to be the brave one out of her and Eliot, but she figured she couldn’t expect it to be him all the time. Taking a deep breath, she began.

“Okay. So, I’m sorry that I tried to have sex with you,” she said outright, the way Parker tended to say everything, except what really mattered perhaps. "Not that I don’t want to have sex with you, because I totally do,” she went on, "but I just... Could you just close your eyes or something?”

Eliot wasn’t sure where that had come from all of a sudden but it certainly got his attention. He had been avoiding looking directly at Parker whilst she was bouncing around like a bug on a hotplate, and using the word sex every five seconds. As if this wasn’t the most awkward conversation ever right now anyway. Now she wanted him to close his eyes, and that was just even more weird, but when she looked at him that way, he couldn’t really argue with her.

“I better still have my pants on when I open ‘em again,” he told her, somewhere between joking and serious as he did as she asked and closed his eyes.

His arms folded over his chest on automatic, defensive even just here alone with Parker because he was down one of his five senses already. He wasn’t sure what the delay was in her getting on with it, but then he couldn’t see her waving her hand in front of his face to make sure he couldn’t see, before she finally spoke.

“Okay. So, I was thinking, about us, and how close we are,” she explained. "I was actually talking to Hardison and... well, that’s not the point,” she started over. "The point is that I’m really bad with words, and I just wanted to tell you how I feel about you, but I couldn’t. So, I thought I could show you instead, and that if we had sex it would be special and then you’d know that was because I feel different about you now, because I really think that-”

The last few words were lost as Parker felt Eliot’s lips on hers in the sweetest kiss.

“I love you,” he said a second later as her eyes opened and she saw him standing there right in front of her.

Parker hardly noticed she had closed her eyes whilst she was talking, but somewhere in her rambling Eliot had peeked across at her and realised it for himself. It hadn’t taken much for him to unscramble the true meaning behind what she was saying, these words she was struggling to get out amongst a million others that probably wouldn’t make much sense to anyone else.

“How did you know what I was going to say?” she asked him then, not sure if she was more confused by that or by how close he was right now.

“’Cause it’s what I was gonna say too,” he told her with a smile as he brushed her hair back off her face. "Parker, I shoulda told you a long time ago how I felt about you, and I shouldn’t’ve got so mad at you before when you just wanted to be close-”

“I did it all wrong,” she interrupted, but he shook his head.

“We both did it all wrong,” he assured her, "It’s not all your fault, darlin’, and I’m sorry for hurting you or making this any harder than it shoulda been,” he told her, "but, the fact is... I do love you,” he promised so sincerely she didn’t doubt it for a second.

All the people in her life that had lied to her and betrayed her, Eliot could just be another in a very, very long line, but Parker knew better. He was the first and last man she would ever trust this much, that she could ever honestly say she had been in love with. When she kissed him then she knew she wasn’t getting it wrong and she was sure he had to know what it really meant as he kissed her back with equal passion.

“Just to be sure,” she said suddenly pulling away, so fast she almost had Eliot toppling over on top of her. "You get that I love you too, right?” she checked. "I mean, I’m pretty sure I do, but you got that, right?

“Yes, Parker,” he chuckled at her crazy behaviour that never ceased to amuse him but at the same time made him love her all the more if it were possible. "I get it,” he promised.

“Cool.” She grinned at that, throwing herself back into her embrace and kissing him long and hard on the lips.

Even in her pregnant state, she was no weight to carry when Eliot lifted her up into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. He’d read that same section in the pregnancy book that she had and he knew how this worked. Of course, it was the first time he ever tried it, but it honestly didn’t matter. Pregnant or not, crazy or sane, whatever Parker was or wasn’t just didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he loved her and she loved him. It was a miraculous kind of crazy that they had gotten this far, but hell, right now it almost seemed like they were going to make it.

* * *

Sophie wasn’t sure what to make of a knock on Nate’s door a while after Eliot left her alone again. The team all had keys and they rarely had visitors. Deliveries were made down in the bar and brought up later, clients were met down in McRorys too, so there was just no reason for anyone to be rapping on the door like this. The grifter frowned as she considered whether or not she wanted to answer or not, whether such a thing was sensible given the way things were.

“Sophie?”

When an oh-so-familiar voice called her name she immediately knew what the right decision was and hurried to open the door. Nate was leaning on the wall just outside, an odd mix of emotions playing across his face as she looked at him.

“Why did you knock?” she asked flatly. "It’s your apartment.”

“I know.” He nodded as he righted himself and yet looked uncertain about coming inside yet. "Sophie, I... I’m such an idiot,” he told her, running a hand over his face. "I really, I just wish I knew how to handle all this, and I don’t,” he shrugged hopelessly.

It was enough to make her want to cry, realising that this might be it, that he really might be giving up on them. Sophie couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand the idea of losing Nate forever from her life. There was no way she could work on the team with him when everything was finally settled and she had been cast aside, and yet she could not blame him for wanting to call it a day once and for all. Her behaviour last night was so appalling, she really couldn’t even forgive herself right now, so there was no way she could expect Nate to try.

“Nate,” she tried to speak but even his name came out strangled. "I, uh... I know I behaved like such a silly cow,” she admitted. "No, I did,” she insisted when he looked set to protest in some way. "And I am truly sorry, but we need to sort this out, once and for all,” she said definitely then. "So, let’s just for once in our lives try having a serious conversation and be honest with each other.”

“I know you’re sorry. I’m sorry too,” Nate replied. "And I agree, about the talk.” He nodded, as they moved to sit down.

At either end of the couch, they stared across at each other, waiting for the other to speak. Neither seemed willing to go first with any kind of declaration or effort to make the peace. Sophie was sorry and Nate had forgiven her, last night it seemed was to be forgotten and the not-quite-couple would move on with their lives. What remained to be decided was how much ‘together’ they would be going forward, after this little incident.

It ought to have been easy, both of them admitting how deeply they felt for the other, and casting aside all past doubts and worries. Unfortunately, this was not a romance novel or a sappy movie. This was reality and the lives of two very broken people trying to come together as one happy whole. It was always going to be tougher than it seemed it should be.

In the silence, Nate’s cell suddenly began vibrating across the table where he had tossed it moments before. He reached out to pick it up and Sophie opened her mouth to protest, but found herself all too late. Nate was up and walking away to take the call, presumably from a client or something since the whole conversation seemed very serious.

Sophie let out a long breath not unlike a sigh of relief. She wanted to talk this out because she wanted everything between her and Nate to be better. Still, the prospect of the conversation was daunting at best and bloody terrifying at worst. Maybe it was best that they let it go for now, and worry about it later.


	23. Chapter 23

Parker was humming away to herself with a happy smile on her face as she took her paintbrush to the next stencil in the row. This room was a nursery for her baby, a child she and Eliot had made, that was now due to be born in a little over two months. That was all pretty shocking in and of itself, but crazier still was that Parker and Eliot were actually happy about all this and apparently completely in love.

It had never occurred to Parker to want to be in love. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she was capable of such a feeling, and even less confident that anyone could find anything about her to care so much about. Eliot was different to any other person she ever met in her life. He got her, on levels she didn’t even understand herself. He wanted to protect her, but not so much that she felt smothered. At the same time, he let her be there for him too, he needed her as much as she had started to need him, and it was nice to lean on each other a little sometimes.

There was so much Parker could talk to Eliot about, and he never seemed to mind. Sure, he called her crazy, but never in a way that made her feel like a freak. He was nice about it, sweet even, her quirkiness amused him now. On the flip side, never once had she been afraid of him. Others ran screaming from guys like Eliot Spencer, especially when they saw evidence of the damage he could do. Parker had complete trust in him, and total confidence that he would never harm her. For someone capable of causing such pain, suffering, even death, he could be so gentle. She was one of the few to know that side of him, Parker was sure of it, and that made it all the more special.

To start with, they probably seemed like a weird pairing, but now the team accepted them as a two for one deal, and the world would have to get used to the fact that Parker and Eliot came as a package now, a package that was growing every day in the region of her expanding belly.

“What do you think, bubba?” Parker asked her bump as she completed her painting and carefully prized the stencil from the wall.

“Beautiful,” said a voice from the door, and the blonde turned around with a smile on her face to see Eliot leaning there watching her.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she pointed out, something he clearly already knew.

“I wasn’t talking about the paintwork,” he countered as he came into the room, put his arms around her and kissed her hello, "but it does look good in here.”

“Of course it does,” Parker scoffed. "I did it.”

Eliot chuckled at her forthright opinion of her own handiwork. He ought to be used to her ways by now but she still caught him off guard occasionally. Theirs was not a normal everyday relationship. From team-mates in a bunch of Robin Hood style thieves, to friends of a kind, and then one night of passion together. Before long there was a baby on the way, and then finally the romantic relationship between them had blossomed. This was close to the life Eliot pictured for himself way back when, back in the days before he began his career as a ‘retrieval specialist’, before his dangerous reputation was set in stone, and any kind of normal life seemed lost to him.

Parker was not the kind of woman he’d seen himself settling down with then, and after, there wasn’t going to be any settling as far as Eliot was concerned. Now he seemed to have landed on his feet in the best of both worlds. Here he was with a woman who loved him that was no bother at all to love back. They had a home and a baby on the way, a supportive faux-family, and they did the work that they were born to do, helping those that couldn’t help themselves by being the greatest thief and hitter the world had ever seen.

“You’re staring,” said Parker, though how she knew when her back was to him again now, Eliot might not have known, if he didn’t have similar skills himself.

“I like the view,” he told her with a smirk, though it wasn’t the entire truth.

For a person so supposedly broken and damaged, Parker had proven herself to be beautiful inside and out. She was the part Eliot had been missing all his life, though he hadn’t even realised he needed anyone to fill him up until now.

“Did you get the job done?” she asked then, as she put her paintbrushes into the pot of water on the table and gave her man her full attention.

“Do we ever not?” asked Eliot as they stepped back and looked properly at the wonderful job she had made of the baby’s room so far. "You did good getting Apollo into the team,” he told her then. "We do need a guy like him. He’s never gonna be as good as you, but he’s cool.” He smiled.

Parker nodded along, then let her head drop onto Eliot’s shoulder as she continued to stare at the walls.

“You think our baby will like this room?” she asked thoughtfully. "I mean Sophie says blue is for boys and pink is for girls... Purple seemed like the way to go, since we don’t know for sure.”

Eliot wasn’t entirely sold on her plan, though he saw the logic to it. If they had a boy, he would rather his son wasn’t brought up in a lilac-trimmed room, but he figured they could change it before he noticed too much. Besides, they might have a girl, and she’d probably love the shade.

“Well, any kid of ours will have good taste enough to love whatever their mother loves,” he said non-committally.

“All that proves is he or she will love their Daddy.” She grinned then, lifting her head up to plant a kiss on his cheek and then dancing away.

She always did that. Anything that sounded like ‘I love you’ to pass her lips was always followed by an escape. Eliot didn’t make a big deal out of it. He knew she was skittish about making her feelings known. Though she trusted him completely, as he did her, it was tough for her still.

It was strange to think that just a few weeks ago they had still be dancing around each other, neither sure how to tell or show the other how they truly felt, how to take the next step. In the end, they had both gone for it in the same moment and confessed their love with words and actions both.

That night had been something else. Eliot had slept with his fair share of women, in fact, he’d slept with several people’s share of women. He’d even slept with Parker before, but that had purely been physical, very little more than a release. That night when they truly made love for the first time, well, he’d never say it out loud because then he’d be a girl, but it was special. He knew Parker felt it too, though she never said so either. There were tears in her eyes as she laid in his arms after, and sighed.

‘Sophie was right,’ she had whispered. ‘Totally better when you’re in love.’

Parker remembered the moment as clearly as Eliot did, and was thinking of it right now as she washed her hands in the bathroom basin and checked her face in the mirror for further paint splodges. She was in love, and the idea of it still made her giggle when she thought on it too long. She never once considered she could feel like this about a person, or that any man could feel this way about her. She was so stupidly happy, and never more so than this past month since she and Eliot had finally confessed how they really felt about each other.

Eliot was all that she really needed, what some might call the man of her dreams, though she had never even dared to hope in that way that she could be this happy. It made Parker worry some that things were going so well. Not much in her life had gone right, but whenever it did, something else usually went spectacularly wrong a short time later, smashing her joy to shards in a matter of moments.

She hoped to God or whoever else might be listening that it wouldn’t be true this time. She trusted Eliot to stay with her, and to survive whatever life or jobs threw at him to always come back to her and their baby. This was why she was happily humming to herself again when she came out of the bathroom and wandered through to the kitchen where Eliot had started on dinner.

“Y’know you do that a lot.” he smiled as he turned to look at her. "Every time I catch you humming to yourself, it’s always that song.”

Parker actually turned a little pink when she realised he was right. It was weird, because usually she had a hundred songs in her head. Not necessarily normal stuff that they played on the radio, but things she knew from a child, stuff she’d made up herself, just random tunes sometimes. This song that was present in her mind more often than not lately was one nobody else knew, except for Eliot, since he was the one who wrote it.

After their first night together as a couple in the truest sense, they spent a long lazy weekend between the bedroom, the bathroom, and the kitchen, getting nothing practical done, but certainly enjoying each others company to no end, and in more ways than one. Somewhere amongst all this, she had expressed a wish to hear him play guitar. In some haze of loved-up happiness, Eliot had been coerced into making up a song on the spot just for her. Parker had started out giggling at how silly her own idea was, and then crying silent tears at how beautiful the melody and lyrics came out.

Later Eliot had written down the words and chords both, and sung it to her more than once. Parker liked to have that song in her head. It was the little piece of Eliot and his love for her that she could always carry inside her mind. If the worst ever happened, that would always be there, eternal and unbreakable.

“Tell me about the job,” she asked, taking two awkward attempts to pull her very pregnant self up onto the counter top - Eliot was sure anyone less agile than her would never in a million years have managed it at all.

“What do you wanna know, darlin’?” he asked her, tying back his hair and washing his hands ready to prepare their food. "It all went according to the plan, for once.”

Parker sighed, a little aggravated that he didn’t get it.

“I wanna know everything, the whole thing,” she insisted. "Everything I’m missing out on.”

She was like a little kid wanting a bed time story, which of course Eliot was going to have to get used to dealing with since they really would have a child soon. It still amazed him how Parker could switch from woman to little girl and back with such ease. It might’ve freaked him out if he wasn’t so completely used to it, and if he didn’t love her just as much whether she was being seven kinds of sexy or adorably cute as a button.

“Fine, I’ll give you the details,” he promised as he moved in close to her and kissed her lips, "but sit your ass down on a chair first, ‘cause I don’t want you falling baby first onto the tiled floor, you get me?” he warned.

She rolled her eyes but still did as he asked her, because deep down she knew he was only being the sweetheart he kept buried inside his armoured shell. Eliot cared about her and about their baby more than anything else in the world, and Parker understood that because she felt the same about him and bubba too. She sat down on a chair with an over-sized sigh that made Eliot smirk and sarcastically thank her. Then he began the story she asked for, how the job all came together and went off without a hitch. Parker pictured it all easily in her head, and didn’t feel quite so left out anymore. In her mind, she took on the roll Apollo had been brought in to cover, and she did it even better than he could. For now this was how it had to be, until after the baby had come and everything got rearranged all over again. She wasn’t sure how things would work then, when they had a little Parker or a little Eliot to take care of, but they’d deal. That was what their team, that could even be called a family, always did.

* * *

It wasn’t so very late, but Parker was already yawing like it was going out of style. Apparently being the better part of seven months pregnant could exhaust a person without them really doing anything much at all, she had found, and today she had been at least a little busy with her decorating of the baby’s room. Eliot insisted on doing a lot of the major painting, and even Hardison had pitched in with that, but she wanted to do the real decorations, the stencilling and close work, all by herself. She was the artistic one amongst them after all. She hadn’t thought just standing up so long could hurt so much after a while, and apparently it was only going to get tougher as the weeks rolled on.

“How can I be this fat?” she asked, splaying her fingers over her ever expanding belly. "I still have nine weeks to go,” she complained.

“You’re not fat,” Eliot admonished the use of such a word, dumping his book and glasses on the table as he turned on the couch to better face her. "You’re pregnant, and that’s different,” he reminded her, his hand joining both of hers where their baby resided. "Besides, you’re still beautiful no matter what shape you are,” he promised, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

She turned her head to meet his lips and then sighed.

“I so wanna have sex with you when I’m not pregnant,” she told him. "I mean, it’s good now, but it’ll be awesome when I don’t stick out so much.”

Eliot laughed at that, almost nervously, because he wasn’t really sure how else to react. She had a point and he couldn’t deny it. It would be easier making love to a regular shaped woman, rather than one that was so heavily pregnant. Doubtless it would be better for both of them, but he hadn’t expected her to come out with it quite like that. He should have learnt by now that with Parker you have to expect the unexpected, but she still managed to catch him out occasionally. Eliot honestly hoped that never changed.

The next minute, she was yawning again, and a check of the clock said it was late enough they probably ought to go to bed. As far as he knew they didn’t have a job tomorrow, but Nate could call at any minute with some emergency re-con or last minute loose end to tie up that had just become a big deal. Sleep would be good, and Parker sure needed it in her condition.

“C’mon, sleepyhead,” he urged her up from the couch, pulling on the hand he held until she was levered up into his waiting arms.

“I hate being this sleepy,” she complained as they headed off to their room, her head resting on his shoulder.

“Gonna get worse yet, babe,” Eliot told her. "You think this kid of ours is gonna sleep all night, every night? Ain’t gonna happen.”

Parker didn’t even want to think about that right now when she was already half way asleep. She put her hands over her ears as she lay down on the bed and wished the world a way a while. She took some encouragement to even take her clothes off, but Eliot was just about as stubborn as she was, and before long they were both under the covers as they should be, wrapped up in each others arms.

“Oh, I was s’posed to tell you, Hardison and Felicia went out again and it’s going really well,” said Eliot in the dark. "God knows why the guy thinks everybody needs to know about his relationship but there you go, now I told you, I can’t get into a fight with him about it later,” he grumbled.

“I don’t mind you telling me.” Parker sighed heavily, eyes already closed and sleep creeping up on her fast. "I like knowing he has somebody special,” she admitted, curling in as close to Eliot as her pregnant belly allowed, her head on his chest and his steady heartbeat helping her relax. "Now there’s us, and Nate & Sophie, it’d be mean if he were all alone.”

“Yeah, ‘cause Nate and Sophie are really makin’ an effort to be a couple,” Eliot scoffed. "They’ve been around in circle so many times, I’m dizzy just watching them do it.”

Parker might’ve laughed at the picture in her head of the Mastermind and Grifter literally running around in circles, but she was far too tired for even that right now. She had hoped that two people that were supposedly so smart could’ve figured things out by now, but she also knew how tough it could be to admit feelings. It was worth it in the end though. If Nate and Sophie could feel half so good together as she did with Eliot, it would be totally worth the problems that might be made too.

They would figure it out eventually, Parker was sure. Even before she believed that she could find some kind of happiness like this, she always had it in her mind that Nate and Sophie would be together someday. That day hadn’t exactly come yet. There had been the one night stand a while back that everybody knew about by now, including Apollo, Cora, the mailman, and the regular patrons of McRorys, she was certain, but nothing serious yet, no defined relationship status. Even she and Eliot knew they were girlfriend and boyfriend now, but Nate and Sophie were still, well, Nate and Sophie.

Other than that one awkward pairing, everything else was definitely going well. That started Parker thinking too much again, about how the jobs were running smoothly, and how she and Eliot hadn’t had a fight in this past month at all. Hardison had a girlfriend, and the Doctor saw no problems with the baby Parker was carrying. Every little thing just seemed to have clicked into place and all was practically perfect.

In the darkness of the room, Parker’s eyes suddenly popped open.

“Eliot?” she said, with a tone that he knew contained far too much worry to be good. "Everything is so good right now, isn’t this the part where something is supposed to go really badly wrong?” she asked, in a real panic, her whole body suddenly rigid against his own.

“Don’t be dumb,” he told her in he nicest possible way as his hand rubbed her back and he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "Everything’s gonna be fine,” he promised her. "That’s what I’m here for.”

Parker smiled at that and let her eyes fall shut again, as sleep finally claimed her. In the darkness, Eliot knew he wouldn’t sleep at all. He had been finding it easier to be peaceful when Parker was here in his arms, much easier than the old days when he would lie here alone, his imagination starting up with too many painful memories, keeping himself awake til dawn to avoid the nightmares that almost always came. Still, Parker had planted a seed in his head right now that could not be easily dispatched. She had a point, it was in moments like these when everything seemed good that something bad generally came next. The questions then became, how bad was it going to be, and when exactly would this new hell rain down on them?


	24. Chapter 24

Parker felt kind of silly and entirely happy in equal measure. Here in the bosom of her family as the saying went (not that she ever really understood that one) it was so easy to find a smile and to forget that life was ever tough these days. Just a few short weeks ago, she had started to feel so comfortable and happy with her life, and had actually questioned it. She openly asked Eliot when things would go wrong, sure that they must do when everything was so good. He had called her dumb and all but promised that he would not allow anything to turn bad. So far he was as good as his word, and the fates had been kind to those that had already been punished enough, as far as Parker could tell.

She and Eliot were in love, and she never knew anything could feel as good as this. Not that everything was perfect, nobody had a perfect life, no matter how much money they had or jewels they stole. Even when people had family and friends, and a person who loved them like nothing else in the world, perfection was impossible to find. Parker was just hoping to hold on to this near-perfect world she had found for as long as possible, hoping that things would only continue on this better path when her baby was born.

“This is crazy,” she muttered as she moved to heft herself out of her seat at the table where Team Leverage were enjoying a meal.

“You okay, sweetie?” Sophie checked with some worry in her tone, as all eyes went to the thief.

“Sure." Parker shrugged. "Just I have to pee like every ten minutes and it’s getting real old, real fast,” she complained.

Nobody looked overly comfortable with the fact she just announced that in the middle of a quiet restaurant, but they ought to be used to Parker by now. Besides, pregnant women did at least get away with being a little more forthright than others might. Somehow it was just more acceptable for her to say whatever she wanted lately, Parker noticed, kind of in the same way little kids or old people were allowed to do just whatever they wanted.

“I could use a visit to the ladies' room myself,” said Sophie, excusing herself and following on after Parker, leaving the guys behind.

Hardison was chuckling over something on his cell phone screen when Nate glanced at him, and Eliot was watching his girlfriend as she walked away across the room, grinning like an idiot for no apparent reason. It made Nate smile too, to see his team so happy. He never could have imagined things would work out this way when they started. He had wondered vaguely on the possibility of Hardison and Parker going through some kind of misguided romance, though he honestly never thought that would last long if it even started. There was no way the hacker could have handled the crazy thief’s ways, and she would not have been able to conform to society and be the dutiful little girlfriend that wanted hearts and flowers. She and Eliot made a better match, though the mastermind really hadn’t seen it coming, not even when Parker showed up pregnant that day and announced it was the hitter’s child.

A one night stand he could make sense of, and he wasn’t shocked when Eliot stepped up to be a good Daddy, because that was just the way he was. The romance came as a surprise, though Sophie hadn’t seemed to think it so strange. If only it was so easy for the two of them to make sense of where their own relationship should be headed.

“Oh no, she didn’t...” said Hardison with a chuckle as he text Felicia back again.

It was almost pointless him being here, since he had spent most of the evening on his cell, typing away to ‘his woman’ as he usually referred to her. Nate couldn’t blame the guy. It was kind of a new relationship, just a month or so since they first met, and since then Felicia was Hardison’s main topic of conversation. He was crazy about the young woman who was almost as smart with computers as he was, and came with a pretty face and a good sense humour to fill out the package. The team had all met her and could find no fault. She had attitude enough to keep Hardison in line if he ever did wrong, but was sweet enough to not be an out and out bitchy type. In a lot of ways she was just what the hacker needed in his life, and his family could not be happier for him.

This last job they pulled had kept them so busy the past few days, Hardison had barely seen anyone but the rest of his team, so Nate could hardly blame the guy for being so eager to get away now.

“Y’know, if you wanna go, Hardison, you can,” he told him. "Nobody minds.”

“Nah, man, it’s cool,” the hacker shook his head, putting his phone away fast when he realised he might be causing offence. "Hey, where’d the girls go?” he asked then, apparently oblivious to the fact they ever moved.

“They went to the bathroom, about five minutes ago, ya bonehead,” Eliot told him with an eyeroll. "You spent so much time with your nose on your cell phone, I’m surprised you even realised there was food in front of you.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you ain’t one bit distracted by Parker sometimes?” his bro challenged. "That last briefing we had, man, I know you weren’t damn listening. When it came to the crunch, you couldn’t even remember what door number I said we gotta go to.”

Eliot opened his mouth to argue that point, but suddenly realised he couldn’t. The man was right, he could get distracted by Parker sometimes, but he never did let it happen when they were actually on a job. It wasn’t easy, but he had to put her out of his head for the most part, except for when he was fighting for his life. Now at least he had more to live for than just to face the next day for the sake of it. He had a woman he adored that loved him back just as much, and a baby due to be born in just one months time. If those weren’t reasons to keep on pushing through, then nothing ever would be.

“C’mon, guys, let’s not bicker like kids,” Nate advised, still not entirely comfortable with the way things were between Eliot and Hardison these days. "The girls are coming back,” he told them, gesturing to where Sophie and Parker were indeed returning.

Hitter and hacker shared a look of annoyance but let it go. They were almost back to normal, almost. It helped that Hardison had Felicia now and didn’t feel so much like a third or even fifth wheel where his friends were concerned. Apollo’s presence on jobs eased a little tension as he acted kind of like a buffer between the guys as well, but in social situations like this, he never wanted to participate, and Nate always felt like he ought to be peace maker when things between Eliot and Hardsion got a little tense.

“Oh,” Parker yawned almost as soon as she sat down. "Is it okay if I skip dessert?” she asked Eliot, who narrowed his eyes at her.

“Are you feelin’ okay?” he asked worriedly, sitting up straighter in his seat and reaching out to her. "’Cause you always want dessert...”

“I’m fine.” She rolled her eyes at his making a fuss. "It’s just been a long day and I’m sooo tired. Even sweet treats aren’t enough to keep me awake much longer,” she declared, flopping her head onto his shoulder.

“I think that’s my cue to take the lady home,” said Eliot as he shared a look with his team-mates. "Thanks for dinner, Nate,” he told the mastermind, who nodded and smiled in response.

He and Sophie watched their hitter and thief leave, with their arms around each other. They were so ridiculously cute for two people that could be so dangerous and cause so much trouble. Soon they would be a family in a larger sense, as the size of Parker proved. A few weeks and there would be a baby in the mix, and that was going to change the dynamic of their team and family all over again. Nobody could really predict how that would work out, and since Nate didn’t really think getting drunk tonight would be his greatest idea, he decided not to dwell on it too much.

“Hey, guys,” said Hardison then, getting both Nate and Sophie’s attention. "Since the party already started to break up...”

“Go,” the mastermind told him easily. "Have fun.”

Sophie smiled widely as she watched the hacker practically run out of the restaurant to see Felicia. That grin slipped into a much sadder expression just a moment later. Everyone was so happy and so in love. Eliot and Parker, Hardison and Felicia, that just left her and Nate, the one decidedly undefined relationship amongst them, though ironically these were the two who had known each other longest.

“Alone at last,” she said with a pointed look.

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded, turning his empty wine glass around and around on the table and never looking up. "Did you want another drink?” he asked, glancing up just as Sophie shook her head.

“I’d rather have a coffee,” she confirmed, "and not here. Somewhere private, where we can talk?” she suggested. "I mean, the kids are alright.” She smiled a little. "All sorted out in their relationships, happy as clams, as they say,” she noted. "Maybe it’s time we grew up ourselves?”

Nate couldn’t deny she had a point. Though they played Mom and Dad to the other three much of the time, they were being the least like adults when it came it their romantic life. Perhaps after all this time they owed it to each other, and to themselves, to have that talk that had been a long time coming and finally make this thing work.

Standing up from his seat, Nate offered his hand to Sophie and liked the way she smiled as she accepted. The bill was duly paid, and then the mastermind helped the grifter into her coat and opened the door for her to head outside. They walked down the street with her arm linked through his, in companionable silence that didn’t need to be broken for quite a while.

They could have gotten a cab but it wasn’t exactly cold even this late at night, and walking together was just so strangely comfortable right now. They were half way to McRorys when Sophie felt the need to speak at all.

“Do you ever wonder what life might have been like?” she said softly, leaning into Nate as they walked along. "If you’d never pulled that first job with the others, or if it really had been a walk-away?”

The mastermind considered his words carefully before he answered. It had occurred to him more than once that this team had probably saved his life in a lot of ways. His drinking might’ve killed him if he carried on the way he had back in LA, when bringing down Ian Blackpoole in hell-bent revenge was all he really needed. Without the support of these people, he had no doubt that he would have lost himself in a haze of alcohol and ended his days alone, friendless, and without a care. As it was, he now had a family of sorts, there was a baby on the way that he was going to have a hand in raising, and though that scared him in some ways, given all that had happened before with Sam, he couldn’t completely hate the idea somehow.

“The past is a dangerous place to visit too often,” he said eventually. "Maybe it’s better to look to the future?” he suggested as they stopped walking outside the bar above which he lived.

“The future could be bright,” she replied, eyes shining in the moonlight. "If you can get used to being the equivalent of Grandpa before long,” she teased him.

“I think we’ll be going with Uncle Nate,” he assured her firmly, though he was smiling when he said it.

It pleased Sophie to see the expression. He could be so serious sometimes, and though she knew Nate had to be that way for the jobs and cons they pulled, she did wish he would just let it go on occasion. Tonight was a happy time, a job well done and everyone so contented in their lives right now. Still, getting Nate to show how he felt in his expression was never easy.

“You should smile more often, you know,” she told him, reaching a hand out to his face. "Not that I don’t love that mean, moody, sexy thing you do most of the time,” she admitted, inching ever closer, "but when you smile, I just...”

No further explanation was really needed, and they both knew it, as Nate leaned down and kissed her firmly on the lips.

They couldn’t keep doing this, going around in circles with how they felt. One moment she would be ready to move on and he would find an excuse. Another time the roles would be reversed. They twisted in circles, closer together and further apart like a dance, but the music was getting old and the steps a boring charade. They both wanted this, wanted to be together, a happy couple like the other people in their lives that had just given in to what they were really feeling.

“I love you, Nathan Ford,” she breathed when they parted. "A part of me, no matter what name I use, has always and will always love you, like nobody else in the world.”

Those words were like magic to Nate when he heard them said like that. He loved Sophie, of course he did, and he believed she loved him to, but such things were hardly ever spoken of. Perhaps it was time that they were.

“As if it wasn’t already clear,” he told her, "I love you too, as much as I could ever love a woman, and no matter what name you use or whatever you do, to me you will always be Sophie Devereaux." He smiled, his fingers running through her hair, until his hand came to settle at her cheek.

“So long as I’m always _your_ Sophie.” She sighed, moving easily into his embrace for another kiss.

This was it, the moment when it all became real. The fairytale had begun like a tragedy but a happy ending was now in sight at last.

They went around the building, Nate leading the way with Sophie’s hand in his. They slipped in through the back door, kissing and giggling like teens as they headed for the stairs, until suddenly the light came on.

“Oh, hi, Nate,” Cora reacted with a little surprise and a blush in her cheeks as she realised what she might have caught him and Sophie on the way to do. "I’m so sorry, I was just... um, you have a visitor,” she said awkwardly, realising with a frown that said visitor may not be so welcome now.

“Here?” he checked. "In the bar?”

“Uh-huh.” Cora nodded, gesturing through and making the couple look.

There at the bar, with a glass in her hand, was Maggie, Nate’s ex wife.


	25. Chapter 25

Sophie wasn’t sure what to think or feel as she looked from Nate to Cora, to Maggie at the bar beyond, and back around again. The romantic haze she had been caught in dissipated at a moments notice, and she saw the world with shocking clarity. Nate wasn’t going to let them have their night, their beautiful fairytale night that started at ‘I love you’ and only got better. Maggie was here, and everything was set askew all over again.

“I, er...” the mastermind said awkwardly as he glanced between his ex who was now waving at him and the woman he loved now stood beside him. "Sophie, I can’t just... I mean...”

He was floundering and he knew it. Poor Nate had no good options here and was sure that Sophie ought to understand. If Maggie was here she had to have a good reason, and even if there wasn’t trouble to be dealt with or a problem to be solved, he still couldn’t just blank the woman he used to call his wife. There was too much history, and Sophie ought to realise that.

By the same token, he knew tonight was a hell of a big deal. They had never come quite this far before, and yet here they were, at last having admitted their true feelings, half way to a night of passion that might’ve cemented their romance at last. Things were real and genuine, and there was the potential of blowing it all over again if he walked away from Sophie and towards Maggie, but what choice did he really have?

“Just go,” said the grifter at last with a defeated sigh. "Why would I expect anything else?” she huffed as she stormed past Nate and then Cora.

Maggie looked at her with confusion as she breezed by, barely even looking at her.

“You’re welcome to him,” she declared as she went by and then just as quickly was gone out through the front doors of the bar that swung wildly in her wake.

“Sophie, I...” she called after her, turning back a moment later with her mouth still open to find her ex stood beside her. "Nate, what just happened?” she asked him.

The mastermind looked from the door through which Sophie had just left to Maggie and back as he sunk down on the stool beside the woman he used to call his wife.

“Would you believe I screwed up again?” He smiled painfully, running a hand over his face.

“Unsurprisingly, yes,” Maggie replied in understanding. "I’m sorry, I came at a bad time, didn’t I?” she said, as she patted his hand on the bar.

“No,” Nate was quick to tell her, but the look in his eyes made a liar of him all to easily. "Well, yes, maybe,” he conceded. "I’m not even sure anymore, Maggie, I’m really not.” He sighed heavily

He was desperate for a drink, even though he knew that wasn’t really going to solve anything. Plus he could use Maggie not judging him too harshly. One woman storming out on him tonight was enough already.

“Scotch for the man,” he heard her say to the bar tender then, and Nate’s eyes shot up to meet hers with astonishment written in them. "I’m through trying to save you, Nate, it’s not my place anymore,” Maggie told him easily. "I thought it was Sophie’s these days, but I’m not so sure she wants the job either right now,” she said with a look. "What happened?”

“You don’t wanna hear it,” Nate waved away her question with one hand, accepting his drink from the bartender with the other and thanking him. "Besides, you must be here for a reason,” he said to Maggie. "You okay?” he checked, before downing his shot in one and gesturing for a refill immediately.

“Actually, yes.” Maggie nodded, sipping her large glass of wine. "I was in town checking out some art for a local dealer, an old friend that moved out this way,” she explained. "I just thought I’d drop in, see how you were doing. I know it’s late for a visit but I have to leave again tomorrow and I just... I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to say hi.” She smiled, feeling a little stupid now because she genuinely didn’t have much more of a reason than that. "Now I kind of wish I hadn’t bothered.”

“It’s not your fault,” Nate assured her, at which Maggie almost choked on her wine.

“No, I think it’s probably yours,” she said definitely, surprising him more than a little as he ordered his third shot. "What is wrong with you, Nathan Ford?” she asked him straight, putting her glass down on the bar with a thud.

“Would you like the alphabetised list, or chronological order maybe?” he challenged her, saluting her with his glass before he drank down the next scotch.

Maggie’s hand on his arm the moment the glass came down stopped him from going for another. They both knew it wouldn’t help anyway.

“Let’s just stick to the most recent stuff,” she advised, "and only things that have to do with Sophie.”

Nate wasn’t sure he should be all that comfortable talking to his ex about his current relationship, but then he could think of no-one else better qualifed to help him out. He loved his team, of course he did, but three were that much younger than him and barely able to keep their own new romances on the straight and narrow. Nate would always turn to Sophie in a time of crisis, if he dared turn to anyone but his good old friend Glenfiddich. When the problem was how to handle his own situation with Ms Devereaux herself, there just wasn’t a person to go to for help, not until now.

“You love her, don’t you?” said Maggie in the silence that went on too long.

“That’s not...” her ex began but she wasn’t listening to any excuses or drunken rambling he decided to do.

“Don’t you?” she prompted the yes or no answer she was looking for, sure already it was the former rather than the latter.

Nate looked away and then back to meet her eyes that never wavered.

“Yeah,” he admitted, feeling strange. "Yeah, I think so, but I swear Maggie, when you and I were...” he gestured vaguely between them. "I never...”

“I know,” she told him with a warm smile as she patted his arm affectionately. "You were a good husband, Nate, and a faithful one, I believe that,” she assured him. "It’s different now, you and me are ancient history, at least romantically, and it’s not like the worst chapter of my life was the time I spent with you, not all of it, but we’ve both moved on now,” she told him what he ought to already have known, as she watched him turn his empty glass around and round on the bar. "You’re a different person, and a guy I like, but I’m not in love with you now, any more than you’re in love with me,” she reminded him, getting his full attention again with those words. "Sophie is the woman for you now. I’ve known that for years.”

Nate smiled a little but the expression didn’t take long to fail on him.

“Really? Could you tell her that?” he asked, at which Maggie laughed lightly.

“Why don’t you?” she offered as a solution, but that only served to make Nate explode, loud enough that the few people left in the bar turned to see.

“I did!” he said too loud, then quietened down when he realised the attention he’d gotten for it. "We were... things were fine, and then she sees you and... and I don’t even really know what happened.” He shrugged at last, wondering if he might get another drink at this point without Maggie trying to stop him.

“Oh, Nate, you’re so tiresome sometimes,” Maggie rolled her eyes, ordering him a drink herself and a refill for her own glass as the barman walked by. "You know what women are like,” she reminded her ex. "Healthy competition is fine, once in a while, but you made that woman wait long enough for you.”

Nate wanted to argue, in fact he opened his mouth to do just that but realised almost too late that she was perfectly right. Sophie had always been there, in some form or other, for more years now than he cared to count. Even when he was still married to Maggie, when he went through the pain of losing everything, when he had to rebuild his life from the ground up, it was Sophie every time. She would take no crap from him, she helped with the drinking, she broke him out of jail for crying out loud! They had been through so much between them, and though she had walked away before now, she always came back, and she never, ever let him down.

“I need another drink,” he said just as soon as the shot glass was empty but Maggie shook her head firmly and made him face her on his bar stool.

“No, you don’t,” she told him. "Nate, don’t make this my fault, I’m not going to let you do that,” she told him sternly, with that same look she sometimes got in the old days when she had to scold Sam for doing something he shouldn’t have. "Go to Sophie, go and tell her you’re sorry, go and get down on your knees if that’s what it takes, but make it right,” she urged him. "Don’t let another good thing disappear from your life, because this time it really would be your fault,” she confirmed.

Whether she was talking about herself, their son, his job, Nate wasn’t entirely sure. There had been an awful lot of loss in his life, and of all people he knew now, the one he couldn’t bear to have disappear for good was Sophie Devereaux. It had taken his ex-wife to make him see sense, of all the people in the world, but she had done it, and he could never thank her enough.

“You’re a hell of a woman, Maggie Collins,” he said, putting his hand to her cheek. "Did I ever tell you that?” He smiled.

“You did.” She nodded happily, even as he scrambled up off his stool to go.

“Will you still be around tomorrow, I’d still like to catch up,” said Nate as he turned back.

“Afraid not,” she told him, just as soon as she’d swallowed another sip of wine. "It’s really a flying visit, I just... I wanted you to know that I’m okay,” she confessed that which she had originally come here to say and never got the chance. "I met someone, y’know, and I’m happy.” She smiled wide.

Now Nate understood a little better why she was so eager for him to grab the good things in life with both hands. She was doing just that, building a new happiness for herself, and he couldn’t be more glad. Jealous exes were no use to anyone, their time was over now but they both had a chance to move on into a bright future, with this friendship between them that would always hold true.

“Any big news here that I might need to know?” she asked, when Nate stood there long enough to give her the chance.

“Um, well, Parker’s pregnant,” he blurted out, thinking there could be no bigger news than that.

“Parker?” Maggie echoed in astonishment. "Wow.”

“Yeah,” Nate nodded along. "With Eliot,” he added, not at all sorry to be able to make it clear his hitter was off the market, even though Maggie had already confirmed she was too.

“Oh,” she reacted differently to what Nate expected. "Well, that makes sense.”

“Seriously?” he asked her, eyes wide at the very concept of Eliot and Parker being an obvious match to any outsider from the team. "You think that... Well, yeah, it kinda does now,” he said thoughtfully after a moment, realising that perhaps he should have seen it sooner, since neither Sophie nor Maggie seemed overly surprised by his hitter and thief hooking up. "Huh. Have you considered a side-line in matchmaking?” he asked Maggie, with a smile that couldn’t be helped - even she was happy to see that.

“No,” she answered shortly. "Now go, Nate. Go fix things with Sophie so I don’t have to worry about you so much anymore,” she urged him, rolling her eyes at what she was sure were his usual delaying tactics.

Nate wasted just one more moment, though he wouldn’t call it time wasted at all as he stepped in closer to kiss his ex on the cheek.

“Thanks, Maggie, for everything,” he told her seriously, before breezing out of the bar at last and leaving her alone.

“No problem,” she said in his wake, turning back to the bar on her stool to finish off her glass of wine.

This really wasn’t how she expected tonight to go, but she couldn’t regret it. At last she and Nate had both moved on in their own way, and remained friends into the bargain. It was strange how things turned out sometimes, but so long as everybody was happy, that was all that really mattered to Maggie.

* * *

It was early in the morning, too early for Parker to be awake she reckoned, until she rolled over and got the sun full in her face. Usually both she and Eliot were pretty early risers, even if they only woke up to make love for a while before they ever got out of bed. It was just natural for them to wake around dawn, but this morning it seemed Eliot had managed to sneak out on her before Parker even opened her eyes.

She frowned a little when she found his side of the bed empty, and then listened hard for a clue as to where he had gone. It happened before, he would sneak off and make her breakfast in bed or something sweet like that, and such attention never failed to make her smile. Right now Parker couldn’t hear kitchen sounds, and she couldn’t here running water from the bathroom either, which was strange. If he wasn’t making food or showering, she couldn’t think what Eliot would be doing up so early without waking her too.

Sitting up in bed, she listened harder and eventually heard Eliot’s voice float down the hall, loud and a little angry it seemed. There was no other person there, she would know it if there were, and so he had to be on the phone. Maybe it was Nate talking about a new job. Maybe it was Hardison having got himself into a jam. Either way, Parker got up out of bed and padded down the hall to the living room.

Eliot was still talking on the phone when she got there but he muttered all his words and kept his back to her til the last. She hadn’t a clue what he was saying and all at once he wasn’t saying anything anymore. He turned around, completely unmoved by the fact she was there, and forced a smile.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted her, walking over to plant a kiss on her lips. "I, er... I gotta head out, just for a while.”

“Okay,” said Parker, though she was frowning all the same as she watched his throw on his jacket and stuff his cell in the back pocket of his jeans. "Is it something important? Should I come with?” she checked.

“Nah, it’s fine,” he told her, though somehow he didn’t seem his usual Eliot-self when he said it, and he barely looked at her the whole time. "It’s just an errand I gotta run. Be back before you know it,” he added with a smile that didn’t quite sit right with Parker, especially when he practically ran out of the door without offering to even come close to her again.

Something wasn’t right, and Parker knew it. She may be less than good at reading people, she may take things a little literally sometimes, but she wasn’t stupid, far from it. Eliot ought to know better than to play her. They were close enough, she hoped he wouldn’t try. Of course, the only course of action for Parker was clear enough. If Eliot wouldn’t tell her where he was going, if he was going to act so weird without explanation, then she was going after him.

Tracking people was easy, Parker always thought so. Sure, Eliot was a little trickier than most people because he was as good at his job as she was at hers. The advantage was that he had no reason to think he was being followed. He never spotted Parker, not the whole walk down from the apartment, across the street, and across town in the truck which she easily followed in a cab. Halfway to McRorys she was sure that was where they were headed, and had the cab driver take a different route, just in case Eliot started to notice he picked up a tail.

The hitter left his truck on the opposite side of the road, and Parker ducked out of the cab without even paying, sure he would never catch her anyway. It was unlikely McRorys wouldn’t be opened up for the day yet, but she knew Eliot had a key the same as they all did for emergencies. He went for the front door and so Parker crept around back. If Eliot was coming to see Nate he would have told her, unless he was planning a surprise party or something, and she figured that couldn’t be it. Her boyfriend knew how much she would hate that kind of surprise.

What Parker hadn’t noticed as she made her way to the back of the building and in through the team’s private room, was that Eliot wasn’t alone coming in the front door of the bar. A woman had been waiting to meet him, someone Parker had never seen before today, and never ever wanted to see again. Her mouth dropped wide open and the bottom dropped out of her world, as Parker peered through into the bar and saw some stylish looking red-head with her arms wound around Eliot’s neck, his own hands at her hips, and their lips crushed together.

First came sadness, then came rage. Parker stormed back out of the door, almost bowling Hardison over as he appeared there with his laptop and a frown.

“Mama, what the...?” he tried to ask, but she heard nothing he said and barely even noticed he was there.

The hacker heard his name called and met Eliot in the doorway between the back room and the bar.

“Was Parker here?” he asked, not waiting for a verbal answer or to give any explanation as Hardison pointed towards the door through which the thief had just gone.

Eliot was already going after her when he heard the alarm go off around front of the building. Running all the way, already panicking about what the hell was going on, the hitter missed all the fun that Parker must’ve been having. Every window and light on his truck was smashed in as the alarm blared like crazy. There was a dent in the hood too, and thrown aside the vehicle the weapon she must have used, the nearest metal bar. Adrenaline borne out of anger was a powerful thing, that much Eliot knew from past experience, and Parker had just learnt as she beat the crap out of his truck.

“Parker!” he called her name into the street, scanning every which way to see where she was gone but there was no sign of her.

It was astonishing how a woman, almost eight months pregnant and all, had managed to do all this damage and escape before he even got here. Still, Eliot couldn’t really be shocked, this was Parker after all and she was not like any other woman he ever met, in all the best ways most of the time, and all of the worst right in this moment. She couldn’t handle what just happened, he knew what she must have seen and exactly what she must have thought. Right now, Eliot Spencer hated himself, even though this wasn’t quite as much his fault as it seemed.

“Yo, Eliot!” Hardison called as he came rushing across the street. "You wanna tell me what the hell is goin’ on here?” he asked, taking the time to shut of the truck alarm that so far the hitter had just let blare on and on.

Eliot ran both hands back through his hair, trying to breathe through the panic and pain both. God, this was the biggest screw up of his life, and that was really saying something. The question then became, could he fix it, or was it all too late?


	26. Chapter 26

Eliot couldn’t see anything, he couldn’t hear anything. Everything was a blur as he stood in the middle of the street, for the first time in a long time, genuinely not knowing where to go or what to do. Hardison knew what he wanted to do though, he wanted to ask questions until Eliot’s ears bled.

“What the heck is goin’ on, man?” the hacker asked loudly. "Where’d Parker go? Why’d she run off like that? And who the hell is that woman in the bar?”

“Damnit, Hardison!” his friend exploded, letting out all his anger at the last guy who really deserved it. "It’s not...” He shook his head, fingers pushed back into his hair and wanting to pull it out with the frustration of it all.

He had to calm down. Freaking out wasn’t going to help, and if he was going to find Parker there was a good chance Hardison would be more help than hindrance. Taking a deep breath, he fought to find that calm centre he kept buried deep inside and pulled Hardison over to where passers-by wouldn’t pay so much mind to them.

“That woman in the bar, you don’t recognise her?” he checked, though he doubted his team-mate got much of a look. "That’s Crystal.”

It was the way he said it more than the name alone that caught Hardison’s attention.

“C-Crystal?” he stammered out, looking genuinely freaked out. "As is crazy psycho woman, thought she was gonna marry you and have Eliot babies after, like, one date?” he double-checked. "Oh yeah, I remember Crystal.” He nodded, looking back over his shoulder fast as if he expected her to have appeared, possibly armed and dangerous.

Eliot was glad Hardison remembered the woman he was talking about. It made it that much easier to explain what was going on here, and wouldn’t result in the hacker thinking he was the cheating asshole that Parker probably had him marked down as right now.

“I thought we got rid of that crazy-ass woman,” said Hardison, as he and Eliot began striding back towards McRorys, purely to see if she was still there. "Didn’t I fake you a trip to Yemen for that very reason? Like, six months ago?”

“Seven,” Eliot confirmed with a curt nod. "About a week before Parker told me she was pregnant. Crystal called since then...” he confirmed, stepping back out of view when he realised the red-head he spoke of was still sat on the bar, swinging her legs back and fourth like a kid despite the fact she was forty if she was a day.

“She called? And you didn’t tell Parker?” Hardison checked.

“Seriously?” his friend responded with a look. "Yeah, I’m gonna tell a highly volatile, emotionally unstable, pregnant and hormonal thief with a tendency towards stabbing guys, that a girl I slept with once is hanging around tryin’ to make me her damn husband!”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” the hacker made a calming gesture though it did little good, and he understood why given the circumstances. "Look, I’ll go get Little Miss Looney Tunes out of the bar, you go see if you can tell which way Parker ran, then you and me, we’ll figure this out.”

Eliot nodded along though he was barely listening. This whole thing couldn’t have happened at a worse time, what with Parker so heavily pregnant and emotional. He hadn’t meant for things to get this messed. When Crystal called again, out of the blue, after he thought he got rid of her for the second time, he figured he could go meet her at the bar, far away from Parker, and sever the connection for good. It hadn’t been easy to come up with an excuse to get rid of her, but he figured terminal and contagious disease oughta do it. The woman wasn’t exactly straight in the head, she’d more than likely believe it. Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten more than three words into his explanation when she threw herself at him, and crazy people seemed to have a hell of a grip. Next think he knew there was an audience bearing witness to his moment of shame, and poor Parker naturally thought the worst and bolted like she always did.

It was a relief at least when Crystal came running out of the bar, practically screaming, and wouldn’t even look at Eliot as she leapt into the nearest cab which tore off down the street like greased lightning.

“She gone.” Hardison grinned from the doorway, gesturing for Eliot to come inside. "Don’t ask me what I said to her, it’s safer you don’t know,” he added, just as soon as the hitter opened his mouth to ask. "Fact is, she gone, she won’t be back, and we got more important things to do.”

Eliot nodded in agreement and followed the hacker inside. He was right in what he said, priority one now was figuring out where Parker had gone and bringing her home. Given how good she was at both running and hiding, he couldn’t imagine for a moment it would be easy, but Eliot was certain he would find her and he would make it right, if it was the last thing he did.

* * *

Sophie hadn’t realised how long she’d been walking until the sun peeked over the Boston skyline. It must have been hours since she bolted from McRorys like a stroppy teenager. It had not been Sophie Devereaux’s finest hour, that was for sure, but once it was done she just couldn’t bring herself to head back and apologise or anything. She was sorry for the way she behaved, she knew she was wrong, but seeing Maggie there in McRorys, on her turf for lack of a better way of phrasing it, and just when she and Nate were finally figuring things out, it had been too much to bear.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Nate’s ex wife. On the contrary, she was a fine woman, and the two of them got along well enough. The problem was that Sophie knew if Maggie was in trouble she would call for Nate and he would come running. That only proved what a good man he was, but sometimes Sophie just wanted to be selfish and know that her man was her own, and hers alone. It was childish and unfair, she was entirely aware of that, but she just couldn’t help it.

Hours after running out of the bar, the grifter knew she should go home. She had avoided that place as much as anywhere else, partly because she didn’t really want to deal with Nate if he had chased her down, but more than that, because she feared he wouldn’t have bothered, and didn’t want to know if it were true. Now she was tired, her shoes had beyond killed her feet, and she just wanted to go and hide under the bedclothes until she stopped feeling quite so stupid.

Stepping out of the elevator on the correct floor, she was hunting in her purse for her key as she approached her own apartment. It came as quite the surprise when she glanced up and realised that she couldn’t actually reach the door since a person was already sat right there in front of it.

“Nate?” she gasped with surprise. "How long have...?”

“How long have I been sitting here?” he asked for her when words seemed to fail her for one of the first times ever. "Oh, I don’t know, six hours maybe?” he offered. "Long enough I’m not sure I can stand anymore,” he realised as he braced himself against the floor and tried, unsuccessfully, to lever himself up.

Sophie wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry as she moved to help pull him to his feet. By the time she had him standing, they were both feeling pretty stupid, and laughing at their own idiocy.

“What are we doing, Nate?” she asked him helplessly.

“I don’t know about you but I’m mostly concentrating on getting the feeling back in my legs right now,” he joked, perhaps a bad time for humour, but he had no other place to start given the circumstances.

There was no doubt he had done as much thinking as Sophie had in the past few hours sat here on the doorstep. They were both such fools, and they knew it too. Every time they almost got close, to talking it out, to sleeping together, whatever, it always went wrong. One or the other of them seemed to sabotage any attempt they made to move forward together as a couple, and all they ever achieved was making themselves miserable.

“We have to figure this out,” said Sophie at length. "Once and for all, because I don’t know about you but this... thing between us, this never defined thing,” she said as she gestured between them, "it’s killing me, Nate.”

He nodded in understanding because he felt exactly the same. She had been his crutch before and at other times he had been hers. They were each others support and safety net for a long time, but now things were getting destructive. It wasn’t that they went out of their way to hurt each other, but it just seemed to happen by default lately, and it wasn’t doing anyone any good.

As they walked into Sophie’s apartment then, a silent promise was made. This wasn’t about sex, it wasn’t about arguing. They weren’t going to talk about his drinking, and he wouldn’t press for her real name. What they had to do was talk about this relationship of theirs, and more than that, they needed to listen to each other. They wouldn’t still be here after all this time if they didn’t love each other, it was now time at last to figure out how they moved forward together. It was now or never, for the very last time.

* * *

It had been almost an hour. Eliot’s feet were tapping with the urge to hurry away to wherever Parker was from the start, then his hands started beating a rhythm on the table. At this point both his legs were jiggling beneath the table, when he was actually sat down. For the most part he had been pacing, and yelling some at Hardison when he didn’t appear to be typing fast enough on his laptop.

They were searching everywhere via technology. Boston was a big city and the more time went on, the further Parker might have travelled. It would be pointless and fruitless to drive around looking for the world’s greatest thief, who was well known for her fast and stealthy escape tactics. This way was better, searching everywhere via traffic cameras, CCTV, and the like. Hardison had hacked into everything, at the same time trying comms and Parker’s cell. Sure, she would want to avoid Eliot, but they had hoped she would pick up when then hacker called - it didn’t happen.

At one point Hardison had Eliot calling for Nate and Sophie, maybe because he thought they might be of use, but more likely because he wanted to give the hitter something to do before he started living up to his title. No answer from the mastermind or the grifter, and so it seemed these two guys were on their own in tracking down Parker.

“This is pointless!” said Eliot, aggravated to the point of jumping up and sending his seat flying back across the room. "I can’t believe this is happening! She is eight months pregnant, Hardison. Eight!” he repeated angrily. "Anything could happen to her!”

“I know, man, but it won’t,” the hacker tried to convince him. "We can track her, we can. I just gotta... Hey! Right here!” he began waving his arm madly, hurrying Elliot over to the computer screen and showing him what he found.

“A truck stop?” said Eliot, looking daggers at the hacker. "Why am I looking at this?”

“Not just any truck stop,” his friend told him quickly. "The Sunoco truck stop in Roxbury, that’s only a couple of miles away, and check this out...” he said pointing on the screen.

Eliot watched wide eyed as a heavily pregnant blonde awkwardly hoisted herself into the passenger side of a truck, which drove away with barely a moments pause.

“I’d love to tell ya I got a licence plate or something, but this is just crappy CCTV I hacked into,” Hardison shook his head. "Our best shot would be to drive over there, see if we can find out from the folks that work there or something?” he suggested.

“I got a better plan.” Eliot shook his head. "I gotta head back to my place and...”

“Nah, man,” Hardison cut in, going so far as to get in the hitter’s way when he tried to leave. "Seriously,” he told his friend when he looked ready to punch him in the face. "You in no state to be drivin’ right now, and your truck certainly ain’t,” he reminded him. "We can go in my car, it’s all good,” he told him easily.

Eliot nodded in agreement but felt more confused than anything else. He looked back as Hardison darted past him to grab his computer and then moved to the door, preparing to leave.

“Hey, man,” the hitter said as he followed a step behind. "Thank you,” he said seriously, "but... why you doin’ this for me?”

“No big deal." Hardison shrugged in response. "I mean, you’d do the same for me if Felicia skipped out, right?” he confirmed as they headed for the car.

“Yeah, you know I would." Eliot nodded his agreement.

Hardison smiled.

“Then we all good, brah,” he confirmed, slapping Eliot on the back. "’S what brothers do.”

That meant a whole lot to the hitter right now, but his smile about it really didn’t last too long. Until they got Parker back, he wasn’t so sure he was really going to feel happy again.

* * *

It was an unlikely, unusual sight, but Parker wasn’t thinking too much about that. She was sure she was the only heavily pregnant passenger in a great big truck driving down the i93, but she just didn’t care. All she could think about was Eliot kissing that awful woman in McRorys and how much it hurt inside. When she ran, she hadn’t really known where she was going. She was out of breath way too fast and immediately knew she was going to need wheels to get anywhere. She stole a car, not for the first time in her life but definitely for the first time in a few years. The truck stop had been a necessity rather than a choice. Her bladder was pretty much the size of pea the last few weeks and she simply had to go. When Parker came out of the ladies room, the cops were hanging around. She didn’t dare wonder why and looked around to find two trucks parked nearby. One had a rough looking man in the driver’s seat, the other a much older woman. That was a surprise, but a good thing, Parker considered, as she hurried over and begged for a ride.

It was the first time she ever told the truth to get a ride anywhere, but then there had never been a circumstance quite like this in her whole life. Mary, the truck driver, had taken pity on her and got her the hell out of town, just like Parker wanted. She didn’t know where she was headed, but she was on her way there, and right now that was all that mattered.

“How you holdin’ up, honey?” asked Mary, as she glanced across at her passenger.

“I don’t know.” Parker shrugged. "I know I don’t wanna cry anymore... except that I do,” she contradicted herself as tears streamed down her cheeks one more time. "I hate it!” she yelled crossly, slamming both hands against the dash. "I hate that he made me feel like everything was okay, that he promised nothing was going to go wrong, even when I told him I was sure something would!” she complained. "Men suck!” she declared.

Mary shook her head.

“Oh, honey, I’ve known my share of awful men in my time,” she sighed, adjusting the baseball cap over her grey hair. "I can’t argue that, on the whole, they ain’t too smart nor to be trusted in a lot o’ cases, but they ain’t all bad.”

“I didn’t think Eliot was bad,” said Parker with a sniff. "Other people probably think he seems bad because of his job and everything, but I... I loved him, and I never thought I could feel like that about anybody ever,” she cried.

“So you caught him kissing this floozy,” Mary recalled from when her young passenger first came aboard. "Did he give ya any kinda excuse?”

“No,” Parker shook her head. "I kinda didn’t ask... I just ran,” she admitted. "Was that wrong?”

“Well,” Mary considered. "Ain’t my place to say right or wrong,” she told her young friend, "but seems to me everybody should get a chance to explain themselves, shouldn’t they?” she asked.

She was sure Alice was a sensible young woman. Couldn’t imagine it was easy for her being so far gone and all, hormones running wild and crazy, and then catching her man kissing on another woman. Still, seemed to her that a fella ought to be given a chance to explain himself. From experience, Mary had learnt that it was very easy to jumped to the wrong conclusion sometimes, but she wasn’t so sure there was a right way to tell this poor child that maybe she was wrong in her decision to bolt.

Just in that moment, the radio crackled and Mary leaned over to fiddle with the controls. Soon enough a voice came clear over the airwaves.

“Breaker 1-9. Breaker 1-9. This is High Wolf,” the other driver stated his handle as if he had done it a hundred times before and yet the voice was one Parker recognised and he was no trucker as far as she knew. "I’m taking one more shot at this, I’m looking for a woman,” he explained.

“Hey, High Wolf,” said another man’s voice, "this ain’t no dating service,” he told him with a chuckle. "Though there’s some good lookin’ concrete blondes around here-”

“This is High Wolf, I’m not looking for just any woman, she’s... she’s _my_ woman,” he explained, "and she’s out there somewhere. She’s pregnant with my kid and I gotta find her.”

“Oh, great,” the same male voice replied. "Some pair of bubblegummers chasing each other around the state-”

“Somebody get this ratchetjaw offa here,” Mary groaned and rolled her eyes before getting on the CB radio hersef. "High Wolf, this is Prairie Momma. I might have some intel on your missing lady friend.”

Parker’s eyes were wide as saucers and she shook her head violently as she realised Mary was about to tell Eliot she was here.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said to the younger woman, as she waited for ‘High Wolf’ to answer her. "I may be old and rough lookin’ these days, but I’m still a romantic at heart. Least you can do is hear the fella out,” she suggested.

It seemed like Parker wasn’t being given much of a choice.


	27. Chapter 27

“For two people who were going to talk, we haven’t done much yet,” noted Sophie as she watched Nate refill his coffee cup.

She ought to be grateful he wasn’t drinking something stronger, but then she wasn’t so sure his obsession with caffeine was any healthier than the alcohol. He seemed to need one or the other to face any situation, and this was perhaps the biggest they would have to deal with for quite some time.

“It’s knowing where to start,” he said with a sigh. "Sophie, I mean... you know how I feel about you,” he told her.

She shook her head.

“I always think I know, and then things change and I wonder,” she told him. "Maybe you could try telling me. I’m quite happy to you tell you that I love you, Nate,” she said openly. "I love you and I want to be with you, in every way it’s possible to be together,” she explained, laying her heart on the line because one of them was going to have to if they were ever going to get anywhere.

“I... I love you too,” he faltered, not because it wasn’t true but because it just felt so strange to being saying such words again after so long. "Honestly, I feel like I’m fifteen again and I can’t even... I can’t even string a sentence together in front of the girl I like.” He smiled, amused by his own stupidity apparently, as he replaced his cup on the table.

“Well, it’s flattering that I can make you so nervous, I suppose,” Sophie teased him, "but seriously, Nate, if you want to be with me-”

“You know I do,” he assured her. "I just, I can’t help thinking, y’know? Every time we get close my brain starts rushing with these scenarios, all the awful ways it could end and, and on some level it seems easier not to go there,” he told her sadly.

He knew he was a fool for being so scared of life and love, and all that could be good between himself and Sophie. He was hedging his bets, skating around the issues, and avoiding getting really close because he was afraid of the consequences.

“But we’re missing out on all that could be good between us, on this beautiful future we could have, because you’re running scared of what might go wrong,” Sophie told him what she was sure he already realised. "Nate, I... I know what happened with Maggie and with Sam. I know that was awful for you-”

“It’s not about them,” he tried to tell her, but it was an abject lie and they both knew it.

“It is.” She nodded, moving closer and putting a hand to his arm. "And it’s okay, because I understand. I mean, I’ve been hurt. Nothing so devastating as what you went through, but I’m risking myself in this as well. I’m scared that it’ll all go wrong, but I’m not bloody well willing to never find out what we could have just because of that,” she said definitely.

She had such strength sometimes, and it made her all the more beautiful and desirable to Nate. He meant what he said before, twice tonight in fact. He did love her, as Sophie Devereaux, or whatever other name or guise she chose to take on. It had been years of back and forth, spinning in circles around each other, never quite making any kind of commitment.

“You know, Maggie was right.” He smiled then, putting a hand to Sophie’s cheek. "She told me I’d be a fool to let the one good thing in my life go, that it’d be my own fault this time around.”

“She said that?” asked the grifter, finding it just a little odd that his ex was the one who had really got him to be here like this, but then theirs never had been a traditional romance.

“Yeah, she was just here on a social call, passing through,” he explained, and Sophie nodded her head, leaning into his touch.

“I’m so sorry I ran out when I saw her, that was childish.” She sighed. "I was just so... so thrown,” she admitted. "I know how much you love her.”

“Loved,” he emphasised the past sense she seemed to be omitting. "And yeah, okay, there will always be a little piece of me that cares about Maggie, even loves her in some way, I can’t switch that off,” he confessed, "but I don’t want to be with her anymore, and she doesn’t want to be with me. We’re just, we’re different people now. At least, I’m a very different man.”

“You’re not so much different to me,” said Sophie with a fond smile, moving ever closer. "You were always Nathan Ford, the only man I ever truly fell in love with,” she admitted, as she kissed his lips.

They were lost in each other for a few brief and delicious moments, until he felt the need to speak again.

“Sophie, I’d love to tell you this is going to work out like some kind of fairytale but... but I can’t do that,” he told her sadly. "There’s not a lot I can promise actually, except that I’ll try to make this work, if you’ll let me, because... I do love you.”

There were tears of happiness rather than pain in her eyes then, as a little burst of laughter escaped her lips.

“Nate, I’m too old for fairytales,” she assured him, taking his face in her hands. "That’s not what I’m looking for. I just want to know that, that what you’re telling me is true. That you love me and you want us to be together, really and truly.”

“Really and truly,” he agreed with a nod, as he pulled her closer and kissed her again.

This time there were no words to interrupt their passion. Finally they were here, in this moment, with no interruptions, no more excuses. This would be their time, a cementing of their relationship that had gone undefined too long. Nothing could tear them apart now, they would both see to that.

* * *

Parker refused to talk to Eliot, she flatly refused. She was all aware of the fact that running at the first sign of trouble was not exactly the grown up thing to do, but instinct made her bolt, and those same instincts told her not to listen to the excuses her boyfriend would spin her right now. He had been kissing another woman, she saw it, so he couldn’t exactly deny it. Of course, truck-driving Mary believed he might have a reasonable explanation, and that Alice, as Parker had chosen to call herself on this trip, ought to hear her man out. She was not at all keen.

“Prairie Momma, this is High Wolf,” said Eliot’s voice through the CB radio. "I’m looking for a blonde, mid-twenties, most beautiful woman I ever met... and she’s carrying my kid,” he explained.

“High Wolf, this is Prairie Momma,” replied Mary as she looked over at Alice. "I think I found just exactly what you’re looking for. In fact she’s sittin’ right here beside me, cryin’ her heart out,” she confirmed.

Eliot felt sick at the sound of those words, and let out a burst of frustration by slamming his hand on the dash. Hardison was not amused to have his car fall victim to Eliot’s bad mood, but this once he was going to let it slide. The guy was in some serious pain over the woman he loved, and the hacker could respect that. He was scarcely less worried for Parker’s safety himself, though at least now they knew she was with a fellow woman and presumably pretty safe since this ‘Prairie Momma’ person seemed willing to reunite these star-crossed lovers.

“High Wolf, you still got your ears on?” came the older woman’s voice over the CB then, and Eliot shook himself out of an angry haze, back to reality.

“This is High Wolf, I’m still here,” he promised. "You got my girlfriend there, Prairie Momma? Can you tell her I... I love her, and I need her to come home, please.”

“She can hear ya, son,” came the response, "but poor Alice ain’t much for talkin’ right now...” she tried to explain, only for a crackling sound to be followed by a new voice on the radio.

“I’m not talking to you!” said Parker, who was clearly using her Alice White alias for a means of escape.

“That’s smart, darlin’.” Eliot told her. "’Cause you just talked to me to tell me that,” he pointed out.

“Well... I’m not talking to you from right now,” Parker amended when she realised he was right. "Damnit,” he heard her mutter right after, before she managed to disengage comms.

“C’mon, babe,” he said with a sigh. "You gotta give me a chance to explain this,” he told her, knowing she wouldn’t have a choice but to listen from her place in the front of Prairie Momma’s truck. "I know what you saw looked bad, okay? I know. But that woman is nothing to me. Hardison’ll back me up. I went out with her one time, and that was before I ever knew you were pregnant and things started happening with us.”

“True dat, mama,” called the hacker from the driver’s side of the car, still giving chase down the highway and hoping they were headed in the right direction to catch up to the truck that carried Parker further and further out of Boston.

“You were kissing her today!” Parker snapped, tears in her voice making Eliot want to cry himself if he were honest, but he wouldn’t allow it.

“No, _she_ was kissing _me_ ,” Eliot assured her. "I only met her to get rid of her. She’s a total looney toons!” he yelled. "I’ve been tryin’ to lose her for months and she won’t stop comin’ back!”

There was silence then, a long eerie silence that started at seconds and fell into minutes all too easily. Eliot started to worry that his CB had given in, because it made no sense for there to be just no communication here. If Parker was upset or just refusing to talk again, he figured the driver beside her would at least say something before signing off. Of course, there was the chance that Parker had just ripped the communicator off the dash and thrown it out the window. Anything was possible with Parker.

“Prairie Momma, this is High Wolf, you readin’ me?” he tried after a while.

“High Wolf, we still here, son,” Mary answered a second later, causing a sigh of relief between both hitter and hacker that they hadn’t lost contact. "Alice here is a might confused I reckon, not sure what to think,” she explained. "You boys far aways?”

“Prairie Momma, we are just south of Bean Town, joining the i93,” replied Hardison in his friend's place, since he was the one following the directions and much more aware of where they were driving than his friend right now. "You far ahead of us?”

“That’s a negatory,” the trucker answered fast. "Can’t be more’n a few miles ahead. Suggest we pull over at the next services and you catch us up,” she advised. "’Cause trust me fellas, this needs figurin’ out face-to-face.”

As Mary gave the exact location of the upcoming truck stop to Hardison, Parker fought internally to decide what she really wanted to do next. She was kind of mad at Mary for making her face Eliot, and apparently Hardison too, but at the same time, she supposed she did want to hear what her boyfriend had to say. Running off into the blue yonder, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, but from almost the second she climbed into this truck, she wanted to go home. Mary was nice enough and she seemed to want to help Alice any way she could. She was all for talking and trying to say the right thing, kind of like Sophie, but less British and fancy. Parker liked her, and that was saying something, because she didn’t generally like too many people. Maybe the Southern drawl was comforting, because it was kind of like Eliot’s own. It made her heart ache to think about the hitter right now, because a large part of her just wanted to be home in bed, wrapped in his safe, strong arms, knowing everything would be okay. 

Right now it felt like it never could be, because the image of him kissing the woman in the bar was so burnt into her memory. She wondered if he could say anything to take that away, and honestly, Parker really hoped he could.

* * *

Eliot came rushing into the truck stop like a man possessed, hair flying madly behind him, as he came busting in through the door, letting it swing back just an inch from some other guy’s nose. He looked around and saw very few people, but out of all of them, none were Parker. That was when his eyes landed on ‘Prairie Momma’. He knew her on instinct, though she wasn’t the only woman here, it was just a gift he had.

“Well, I’m seein’ why they call you ‘High Wolf’,” She smiled as he approached her table, knowing him just the same somehow. "Eliot, right?”

“That’s right, ma’am,” the hitter nodded, eyes still scanning the room.

“Alice is in the ladies' room,” she assured him. "Pregnant as she is, I’m guessin’ she spends half her life in there right about now.” She smiled. "Why don’t you sit your fine behind in this booth already?” Mary advised, when Eliot continued to hover. "Don’t wanna spook the girl, do ya?”

Eliot took the advice as given and sat down, choosing to ignore the fact this much older woman just checked out his rear view. All he wanted was to see Parker, to explain what happened and make things right. He couldn’t stand this, the waiting and wondering. If not for the fact she was almost eight months pregnant, he’d be in the ladies room himself, checking she hadn’t sneaked out the window!

“Y’know, I’m pretty certain I made the right choice lettin’ you catch up on us,” said Mary from the other side of the table. "I took one look at that girl and I thought ‘Mary, thirty or forty years ago, you’d be lookin’ in a mirror right about now’.” She smiled.

“I’m grateful you even talked to me,” said Eliot genuinely. "I know it doesn’t sound good, me and this other woman, but what I said was true.”

“And I believe ya.” Mary nodded easily before finishing up her coffee. "Reckon Alice does too, but she’s probably feelin’ hurt and confused right about now. You gotta tell her how you really feel about her, son, and then you gotta prove it,” she told him straight. "Us women folk, we don’t like being messed around so much.”

“I know,” Eliot replied, "and believe me, I never meant for this to happen. She... she means everything to me, her and our kid. Everything,” he repeated with such sincerity as Mary couldn’t ever doubt in those baby blues of his.

“Y’know, I used to know a fella like you.” She smiled. "A different kinda handsome maybe, but eyes like those you got, and a passion that... well, you don’t need to hear about that.” She shook her head. "But you remind me of him, more than a little,” she said as she got up from her seat and left a few bills on the table for her drink.

“Good guy, I hope,” said Eliot, as his eyes followed her movement.

“Wouldn’ta married him if he wasn’t, God rest his soul.” Mary smiled somewhat sadly, before getting ready to leave. "Don’t let her down again, High Wolf, ya hear me?” she said, gesturing past their booth to where Parker had just come out of the bathroom.

“I hear ya, ma’am,” said Eliot with a dutiful nod, as his own little thief came waddling over, "and I promise I’m gonna make this up to her.”

Mary believed him apparently, and that was something. Whether Parker would or not was a whole other question.


	28. Chapter 28

Eliot finally had Parker sat here with him, willing to listen to him, or at least not bolting to get away right now, and yet he hardly knew where to begin. Words were not a strong point for the hitter, he was much better with actions, but all he proved himself capable of doing today was cheating on the woman he loved. He knew he hadn’t really done that, but he also knew that was exactly what it looked like it Parker. With her so fragile already when it came to trust and relationships, and then pregnancy and hormones and all on top of that, this was not going to be an easy hole for Eliot to dig himself out of. Nevertheless, he had to try. He could not lose Parker, he just couldn’t.

“First off, I wanna tell you again how sorry I am, Parker,” he told her from the other side of the booth, hoping at some point she could look at him, but so far no joy. "I should’ve explained about Crystal instead of sneaking around, that was dumb.”

“You are dumb,” she snapped in response, folding her arms atop her pregnant belly.

“Yeah, I’ll agree with that,” Eliot conceded, "but I’m also sorry, like I said, and you oughta believe it, ‘cause it’s true.”

Parker sighed at that and made a particular point about fixing her eyes out of the window. Eliot was getting frustrated again, more and more so by the minute, and he fought to stay calm as he continued.

“Look, I know you got issues with guys and with trusting people,” he started, only to have her interrupt again.

“Yeah, because you’d take it so well if you caught me kissing some other man!” she argued. "I know I have trust issues, Eliot, but it’s people screwing me over that made me this way!” she reminded him, way too loudly for a public place, and with tears forming in her eyes that made the hitter’s heart break.

This was the most awful situation he had ever been in, and that was really saying something, but it was true. Knowing he had hurt Parker, knowing that she might never look at him the same way again, it tore him up inside in a way nothing else ever had.

“Parker,” he reached for her hand that was momentarily on the table, but she pulled it away before his fingers ever made contact with her own. "Darlin’, please,” he begged her. "Would you at least look at me?”

With a condescending sort of an expression that he swore she must’ve learnt from Sophie, Parker turned her head and gazed at him, no less hurt and angry than before.

“What difference does it make if I’m looking at you or not?” she asked, genuinely not seeing that it made any at all.

“Because I know these days you read people almost as good as I do,” Eliot told her, "and even if other folks aren’t so easy to figure, you know me. You’ll know if I’m lying, ‘cause you’d see it in my eyes, right?”

Parker had to admit he had a point. She had made a study of the man in her life, the man she actually thought she’d fallen in love with. If he lied to her face she was sure she would know it, and the more she thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense that Eliot would be having an affair anyway. Even when he was sleeping with a new girl every week, long before they ever got together, she knew it was only one woman at a time. He didn’t cheat. For a thief and a hitter, he was kind of a gentleman in that way, that much Parker always knew.

“Okay.” She nodded then. "Tell me about the woman I saw you kissing. I want to know everything,” she said though there was a shake in her voice that made a liar of her.

The truth was, she didn’t want to know, but she needed to. She was never going to get all these thoughts out of her head, all this worry and pain, if she didn’t hear the whole truth and find a way to believe it. She did want to believe, she wanted Eliot to be innocent of this crime she accused him of, and she wanted everything to be back the way it was, but he had to prove it could be first.

“Okay,” Eliot agreed, clearing his throat before he began his tale. "Er, I met Crystal in a bar, when I was out with Hardison. It was a couple of weeks before you and me slept together,” he explained. "She was... well, she liked me and I kinda liked her,” he said at length, deciding waxing lyrical on the other woman’s hotness was maybe not the best of ideas right now.

“Did you have sex with her too?” asked Parker, staring Eliot right in the eyes.

“Yes,” he answered honestly, staring right on back at her, "but, sweetheart, believe me when I tell you, I wish I hadn’t,” he swore. "The chick wouldn’t leave me alone, and you know I never led girls on. I told ‘em straight that I was in it for the good time, no strings.”

Parker nodded that she did understand, and waited for him to go on.

“Anyway, it was around a week before you showed up at my place to tell me you were pregnant,” he explained. "Crystal was calling me every day, she was... she was crazy. Making plans for me to meet her parents and marry her, all kinds of crap, I just couldn’t get rid of her!” he said, anger and frustration seeping in as he talked of the woman that had done more damage to his life than she could ever conceive. "Hardison figured out what was happening, and he helped me out. He faked me some plane tickets and a reason to leave for Yemen for, like, five years or somethin’. It was supposed to get rid of Crystal.”

“But it didn’t,” said Parker when he paused and looked away.

“No, it didn’t,” Eliot confirmed, glancing back at her. "She saw me, apparently, I’m not even sure where, but she knew I was ‘back in the country’ and she started calling me again.”

“She was the ex-girlfriend?” Parker frowned some as she recalled a phone call from months ago. "That day you asked me to move in with you, you got a call from a girl and you said she was an ex.”

“Yeah.” Eliot nodded, remembering the same day himself now. "Yeah, that was her. I was trying to buy some time, figure out another way to get her the hell outta my life. I couldn’t just go pissing her off too much, she was so out of her mind.” He shook his head. "I just didn’t know what to do for the best, okay? I thought if she found out about you, she might... she might wanna hurt you or get rid of you,” he explained. "Believe it or not, I never told you about her because I was trying to protect you, not just your feelings, but physically protect you.”

Parker kept on staring at him, eyes locked onto his own baby blues. He meant what he said, she ought to know if he was lying by now, and Eliot also knew he had nothing to fear because every word out of his mouth was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“Never, since the day I found out you were pregnant, have I touched another woman that way,” he promised then. "No dates, no sex, not even so much as a drunken fumble, not at all,” he swore, counting points off on his fingers for her to see. "I have never and would never cheat on you, Parker. I swear it on our baby’s life.”

The blonde’s arms went instinctively over her belly then, about to yell at him for risking their unborn child that way, until she realised he never would. Eliot wouldn’t risk their baby, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t even risk her, though he’d made her doubt it just a little today. If he was willing to swear on their unborn son or daughter, he had to be serious. Besides, Parker had seen no flicker of a lie in his eyes this entire time, nothing but pure truth.

“I believe you,” she said at length, though her voice came out much wobblier than she meant as tears streaked down her cheeks unchecked.

“Thank you, darlin’,” replied Eliot with audible sigh of relief as she finally allowed him to reach for her hands across the table and squeeze them tight. "I gotta admit, not much scares me that easy, but thinking you were gone and-”

“I’m not gone,” she interrupted when he faltered some. "I’m here, we’re all here.” She smiled through a veil of tears. "But I don’t wanna be,” she admitted, worrying Eliot again all but momentarily. "I just wanna go home,” she cried.

He was around the table in second, beside her in the booth, hugging her close. With their arms around each other, the world went away, and then she was kissing him, and Eliot knew that everything was going to be okay. This was the first and only time he would let something so awful and stupid as this happen to them. From now on, he tried harder to be the man Parker deserved, the kind of man his son or daughter would be proud to call Daddy.

“Hang on a second,” said Parker as she pulled away a moment with a frown on her face. "I thought Hardison was with you?” she checked, knowing she had heard him on the CB in the truck.

“He’s out in the car,” Eliot smiled widely. "I think he was afraid that if things went bad, he was gonna end up injured, and if they went good, well...” he sighed, running his fingers through her hair and across her cheek, "then he was gonna have to see this.” He smiled as he pulled her head towards him and kissed her again, long and deep and full of the love he had only for her.

It was a while before it occurred to either of them to get up and move, but Hardison was only too happy to see them when they emerged from the truck stop with their arms around each other.

“And all is right with the world.” He grinned as he hopped out of the car and met them. "You okay there, mama?” he checked with Parker, who nodded her head.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she promised, "but can we go home already?”

“Your chariot awaits, ma’am.” He bowed in some over the top way as he opened the door to the back seat and helped Parker get in.

Eliot didn’t see as he was running around to the other side, but his girlfriend winced a little as she sat down, and Hardison couldn’t fail to notice.

“Hey, that ain’t good,” he noted.

Parker shook her head.

“It’s fine,” she assured him, as Eliot appeared at her other side. "My back’s been hurting off and on since I ran out of the bar,” she admitted. "Actually, it might’ve started before that,” she admitted.

Eliot and Hardison shared a pointed look at that comment.

“Parker,” her boyfriend said worriedly. "These pains you’ve been getting, are they regular, like every few minutes?” he checked.

“Hmm, yeah, I guess.” She shrugged. "I think they’re getting closer together though, and worse,” she winced as she seemed to feel another right in that moment.

“Oh, man, that really ain’t good,” said Hardison, with genuine panic written on his face. "You still got five weeks to go, don’t you?”

“Hardison, don’t talk, just drive,” Eliot advised his friend, waiting for him to scramble into the driver’s seat before turning full attention to Parker. "Sweetheart, I don’t think this kid of ours wants to wait any longer to be born.”

* * *

“You okay?” asked Sophie as she cuddled into Nate’s side and stared up at him. "You’re very quiet,” she noted, biting her bottom lip out of worry though she would never admit it.

“No,” he sighed as she pulled her closer, and found a smile the like of which she rarely saw on his lips. "No, I’m much better than just okay,” he promised her, leaning down to kiss Sophie’s lips.

Making love together had been so much more special for the knowing that it was forever this time. Before, the both of them worried about the consequences, about where they went from here and how. This time around they actually bothered to figure out the status of their long undefined relationship before they jumped into bed together, and it felt that much better to lay here after, in the glow of their passion, knowing they never had to worry again in that regard.

“I could stay here all day,” said Sophie, stretching her body out like a cat against Nate’s own. "I don’t think there’s anywhere else I’d rather be.”

“Not even Paris?” he teased her, eliciting a chuckle from her lips.

“Not even Paris,” she promised him, moving in for another kiss.

They were caught up in passion before long, the world going away for both of them, even when the phone started ringing in the next room. There was a machine to pick it up, it wouldn’t matter, at least that was what they both thought until they heard the voice on the other end speaking loudly and frantically.

“Sophie?!” yelled Hardison through the answering machine. "Seriously, woman, I don’t know where you and Nate got to, but you better be abducted by aliens or somethin’ ’cause ain’t no other excuse gonna cut it!” he told them harshly.

The pair pulled apart, twin looks of confusion on their faces as they gazed at each other and then simultaneously turned their heads towards the sound of their friends angry voice.

“Seriously? You know how hard it was for me to find your home phone number on the fly? Well, actually not that hard, but it ain’t the point!” he said crossly. "Fact is, I down here at the hospital with Eliot and Parker-”

He was barely past the word hospital when Sophie was there at the phone, grabbing up the receiver.

“Hardison, what’s wrong?” she asked, all of a panic, as Nate gave chase and appeared behind her, dropping her robe around her naked form as he leaned in close to hear the hacker’s reply.

“Man, we had all kindsa drama whilst y’all been sleepin’ or whatever the hell it is you been doin’!” he confirmed. "Fun ain’t over yet either, ‘cause Parker went into labour already.”

“She isn’t due for another five weeks,” said Nate, loud enough that the hacker heard him over Sophie’s shoulder.

“Well, baby don’t care about that, it’s already coming,” he confirmed, "and we could use a little more support down here.”

A minute later, Sophie and Nate were throwing on clothes and bolting out of the front door to rush to the hospital. Their relationship mattered, of course it did, but this was their family that needed them now. Nothing was more important than that.

* * *

Hardison was pacing. He knew it wasn’t helping but he couldn’t settle to anything else but a steady walk up and down the waiting area. Folk were staring at him, but he paid no mind, and he was sure more than one thought he was the expectant father in all this. As it was, he was just Uncle Hardison to whatever gender child that was about to pop out of Parker, but that didn’t mean he was any the less freaked out right now. Kids survived being born at thirty five weeks, he knew that. Hell, technology these days meant some survived from twenty five, but right now Hardison wasn’t exactly thinking straight. This was Parker, and Eliot, and their precious bundle. Sure he hadn’t backed the relationship from the start, but if anything went wrong now, he just couldn’t stand it.

“Hardison!” Nate called out to him from half way down the corridor, as he and Sophie rushed through to meet him.

“What’s happening?” she asked, hugging the hacker tight.

“I dunno exactly.” He shook his head. "Parker started having contractions, so we headed for the hospital, and by the time we got here things had kicked up at least six notches,” he admitted. "They whisked her off to a room, Eliot went with her. I just gotta stand here and wait 'til somebody tells me somethin’.”

“They’ll be okay.” Nate nodded, putting a reassuring hand on Hardison’s shoulder. "Parker’s tough and she has Eliot’s support. They’ll be okay,” he intoned.

Sophie knew the moment she looked at him that he was trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. Just being in a hospital had him pale and shaking in a heartbeat. Add in the fact he was probably reliving both Sam’s birth and death in the same moment, this had to be killing him inside.

“Maybe we should wait in the car,” the grifter advised, getting Nate’s attention onto her for a moment.

“No,” he snapped, then softened as he met her yes and forced a smile. "No, I’ll be fine,” he assured her. "It’s important that we’re here for them right now. They’re family,” he said, gripping her hand tight in his own.

The family they spoke of were just down the hall, Parker laid back on a bed, screaming the place down, as Eliot hovered beside her feeling as useless as he ever had the whole course of his life.

“Oh God, why does it have to hurt like this?” his girlfriend complained as she flopped back against the pillows and cried.

“I dunno, darlin’” he tried to sympathise. "I wish I could take the pain for you, but I can’t.”

The doctor and the nurses were talking but Parker barely heard them. It wasn’t even a doctor she knew but the first one on hand at the hospital given the emergency situation and the fact her own OB-GYN was out of town this weekend.

Everything hurt, absolutely everything, even breathing. Parker couldn’t understand why anyone chose to do this. She got pregnant on accident, but there were woman that did this on purpose, she knew, and several times. It was agony and horrible, and she honestly wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep pushing on demand.

“Hey, c’mon,” said Eliot then, his voice coming clear through everything as his hand cupped her cheek. "Babe, you’re stronger than this, I know you are,” he told her straight. "You can do this,” he said definitely, his eyes locked onto her own. "We can do this, together,” he promised with one of those rarely seen smiles she was sure he kept especially for her.

Parker felt another wave of pressure building and knew she was going to have to push again. She grabbed instictively onto Eliot’s hand, and squeezed it as she pushed one more time.

“C’mon, darlin’! That’s my girl!” he was telling her, over and over, and Parker heard nothing else as she gave everything she had, and then it was over.

“Congratulations,” said the nurse, as a baby’s cry filled the room. "You have a daughter,” she announced.

If Parker had been paying attention she would have seen tears glistening in Eliot’s eyes as he looked from her to their baby and back. She just made him a father, to the most beautiful baby girl. The look on his face might’ve been worth the effort, but somehow Parker still didn’t feel right.

“Okay, now you take a few minutes, get your breath back,” the doctor told her, close enough to her ear that Parker had to pay attention. "I don’t think it’ll be long before baby number two needs Mommy’s help getting out of there.”

“What?!” Parker and Eliot’s exclamations came out as one loud sound, that even drowned out their wailing daughter.

There was another baby?


	29. Chapter 29

“Excuse me?” said Sophie as she approached the desk, throwing on an American accent on purpose. "Could you please tell me what’s happening with-”

“With our daughter,” said Nate behind her, visibly shaking as he laid a hand on Sophie’s shoulder.

She reached to grip it instinctively, smiling because she had almost said the same thing he just had, and because he was being so incredibly brave and strong for the sake of the daughter they spoke of right now.

“She was brought in almost an hour ago,” said Hardison as he came up along side them. "I’m her brother,” he told her. "Adopted,” he clarified when the nurse looked at him a little strangely.

“She’s in labour, five weeks early, and we’re worried about her,” explained Sophie with genuine worry in her eyes. "The doctors are telling us nothing, and Eliot, that’s her boyfriend, he hasn’t come out to tell us it’s good news, so we starting to wonder if... if it’s bad,” she stammered some.

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” said the nurse with evident empathy. "I’ll just go check for you, right now.” She smiled kindly as she hurried away.

Every one of the three she left behind prayed she was right.

* * *

“This can’t be right,” said Eliot, completely baffled by the turn of events.

His eyes went from his brand new baby girl being cleaned up by a nurse, to Parker who lay panting and gasping on the bed still, and finally to the doctor who was insistent there was another child on the way out soon.

“No.” The blonde shook her head, wanting to cry from joy and pain all at the same time. "No, one baby. We have one. I had these appointments, like, every five frickin’ minutes and he said one baby,” she insisted, going so far as to grab this doctor by the shirt the moment he was close enough and hauling him in close to her face. "How are there two babies?!” she demanded to know.

“Parker, easy,” Eliot advised, carefully disentangling her fingers from the doctor’s clothes. "Hey,” he got her attention. "I know this doesn’t make sense, but the doctor is gonna explain it, if we just give him a second,” he said with a growl in his tone that was no less scary to the doctor than Parker grabbing him that way.

“I honestly couldn’t say why your own doctor was unaware of the twins,” he explained, adjusting his shirt. "I can only tell you that this has happened before, not often, but it has,” he explained. "If one child is behind the other, hidden from view, it’s quite easy to miss that you’re having twins,” he went on. "Their heartbeats must have been almost perfectly synched, but it can happen... evidentially.” He smiled awkwardly.

“Two babies,” said Eliot looking at Parker who was fit to burst into tears.

“Twins,” she echoed the sentiment as she looked up at her boyfriend. "Eliot, I can’t do this twice. Once felt like it was killing me, like, literally killing me.”

“C’mon, babe,” he urged her to be calm as she started to panic. "We got this,” he told her as he put a hand to her face, pushing sweat soaked hair back out of her eyes. "Okay, that sound you hear is our daughter, and she’s yellin’ at you to say ‘Mommy, you can do anything’, ‘cause you’re Parker, and you’re the Goddamn toughest, most beautiful woman in the world,” he said with a smile that made Parker want to cry all the more.

“I can do this,” she echoed. "I can. Of course, I can,” she said, with just a little less confidence than she truly felt, as another bout of pain swept through her whole body. "Oh God!”

* * *

“What’s taking so long in there?” asked Sophie worriedly. "That nurse disappeared hours ago and never bloody came back!” she complained, perhaps a little too loudly, she realised, as several people turned to stare.

“I know it feels that way, mama,” Hardison said calmly, putting a hand to her arm. "but Soph, it’s only been like fifteen minutes.”

“Besides, she probably got called away,” said Nate from the grifter’s other side. "You didn’t hear the announcements? They’ve had two more emergencies whilst we’ve been sat here,” he said, with a blank expression.

A maternity ward meant new life and joy, but it could also mean tragedy. Some babies didn’t make it, and though technology had come on leaps and bounds, mothers still died in childbirth occasionally. Sophie grabbed onto Nate’s hand and held it tight, worrying terribly about Parker. It couldn’t be a good sign that the baby had come so early, and now nobody was telling them anything even though they were playing the part of family. It was the most nerve-wracking thing in the world just sitting here waiting for what felt like forever.

“Eliot!” Hardison was up from his seat in a flash just as soon as he saw his bro clear the swing doors down the hall. "What’s happenin’? How’s Parker? And the baby?”

There was a blank look that not even Sophie could read on the hitter’s face for a long time, and then his eyes gained some focus as he looked at each of his friends, one after the other.

“We have a daughter,” he said with a sudden grin, the like of which the team rarely if ever saw, "and a son.”

“What?” came the collective gasp from all three of his team then.

All Eliot could do was laugh.

* * *

Parker was beyond exhausted after giving birth to two children. She wasn’t sure how long she slept with Eliot there sat beside her, watching over both herself and their twins. Just as soon as she woke the very first words she heard from her boyfriend were ‘I love you’, which she echoed back with a smile. It was incredible to think how far they had both come, how different but exciting life was going to be raising their kids.

Alone time was nice, but once Eliot told Parker the team were waiting to come visit with her and the kids, she was sitting up and shooing him down the hall to fetch them. They were her family too and she wanted to show off what she had done, how she and Eliot had made these two perfect little people somehow. Sophie and Hardison came in first with Eliot right on their heels. Nate lagged behind, clearly uncomfortable, and most likely for more than one reason.

“Hey, man,” said Eliot as he turned from the scene of Sophie cooing over the babies and Hardison hugging Parker to look to the team’s mastermind. "I appreciate you bein’ here,” he said solemnly. "I know it’s tough on you.”

“No,” the mastermind answered quickly, then off Eliot’s look he nodded. "Well, yeah, but... it could be worse.” He found a smile as he looked over at Parker and Sophie, both holding a baby in their arms.

Hardison perched on the other side of Parker’s bed as Nate pulled up a chair and said hello to the kids that would grow up to call him Uncle Nate.

“Good work, Parker,” he told her with a smile that made her want to cry all over again.

“I’m almost afraid to ask if you have names for them,” said Sophie with a look as she took the other seat, and let Eliot move in next to his girlfriend.

“Well, I know Parker has her heart set on Peter for our little man here,” he said, nodding toward the baby Sophie held. "I was hoping I could get away with naming our daughter,” he smiled, looking down at Parker, and kissing her temple. "What do you think of Mary, darlin’?”

The smile on Parker’s face then lit up the whole room.

“I think that’s perfect.” She giggled as she gazed down at the baby in her arms then. "Except... well, how about Mary Louise?” she tried, with a hopeful expression as her eyes shifted back to Eliot’s face.

Nobody knew why that meant so much to the hitter, but then it was only Parker he had told about his much loved sister, Lou.

“Thank you, Parker,” he whispered into her hair. "Thank you,” he repeated as he kissed her.

“That means you get to pick Peter’s middle name,” she said definitely. "Otherwise it’s not fair.”

Whether she meant it would be unfair to give one kid two names and the other only one, or whether she meant she shouldn’t pick two names when he only picked one, nobody was sure. The fact was it didn’t matter, and besides everyone was so distracted with the new arrivals, they were barely listening.

“Okay,” said Eliot thoughtfully, watching Hardison as he encouraged Mary Louise to grab onto his finger. "I’m thinkin’ Peter Alec’d sit just right,” he said, watching with amusement as the hacker’s eyes shot up to meet his own.

“Seriously, man?” he gasped then. "Seriously?” he echoed with genuine shock.

“Seriously... Uncle Hardison,” his friend agreed, putting out his hand for their usual high five/fist bump combo.

Sophie laughed with delight at the happy family scene before her, but was frowning in an instant when Peter wriggled and whimpered in her arms. Immediately, she off-loaded him to Eliot, sure he wouldn’t make such a fuss for his Daddy. She was right, he was silent again in a second.

“Uncle Hardison is gonna teach you both how to hack computers,” Parker told her children then, "and Aunt Sophie will teach you the grift, and Uncle Nate will make you smart like he is.”

“It’s not like Mom and Dad don’t have plenty to teach too,” her father figure reminded her with a smile.

“Yeah, I’m guessin’ Peter-man here is gonna be the rappelling safe cracker,” said Hardison with a grin. "So that leaves you tryin’ to teach your girl here how to hit straight,” he told Eliot.

“Isn’t this just a healthy way to approach parenthood?” Sophie commented, smiling anyway because she would expect her strange little family to act no differently somehow.

“They’ll need to know that stuff,” Parker told her seriously. "Then they can help us pull jobs when they’re older. It’ll be great.” She grinned delightedly up at Eliot, who rolled his eyes.

It was a crazy idea, but he wasn’t going to argue with her right now. This moment was too special to break.

“Parker, are you sure that...?” Nate began, unsure how best to word this without making matters worse. "Well, I wondered if you’d even want to go back to, y’know, doing what we do.”

“Things are gonna change,” said Eliot with a shrug, "but I’m not sure how easy it’d be for us to give it up, right, babe?” he checked with Parker, who nodded her head.

“Exactly. What we do helps people,” she reminded them all. "We kinda save the world, one bad guy at a time, and now that’s more important than ever,” she said with determination. "Now we have these two to save the world for. I can’t think of a better reason,” she declared.

Not a person in the room could argue with that.


End file.
